Scenes from a homeward journey
by LizzieBoleyn
Summary: Following their arrival at the Eastern edge of the World, Edmund, Lucy and Eustace win Aslan's permission to return to Narnia aboard the Dawn Treader. Getting home proves to have hazards of its own.
1. Chapter 1 Westward, Ho!

Author's Note: I own nothing you recognize. I always thought it a pity Edmund and Lucy didn't get to take Eustace back to Narnia. Following Vignettes from a Voyage, this is my strictly AU take on the Dawn Treader's homeward trip.

_**SCENES FROM A HOMEWARD JOURNEY**_

_WESTWARD, HO!_

That ceremonial solemnity which had attended the departure of Reepicheep could not, Lucy admitted to herself, have been long maintained. It had lingered beyond her party's returning; beyond the Mouse's disappearance, from the crest of a wave into nothingness. Then a great sigh, seeming to begin in the timbers of the Dawn Treader herself, had rippled around.

The merest flicker of a glance had been exchanged between the two young men on the poop; only Lucy had noticed the tiny nod from Caspian in the instant before Drinian had begun bellowing the orders that would heel his ship around, turn her prow into the setting sun, so that for the first time in half a year the painted eyes of the dragon would stare west. Toward Narnia. Toward _home_.

As the men had leapt to their commander's instruction, Lucy had felt her heart lift, her spirits soaring to the masthead for joy - and gratitude for Aslan's unexpected response to her plea_. Let us see Narnia again, Aslan! Please!_

Now, darkness had descended. The Dawn Treader lay becalmed beneath a black velvet mantle spangled with silver sparkles; stars so bright one felt one might easily reach up and seize one. The crew were gathered on the main deck to sing, dance and make merry in celebration of journey's end. Leaning against the poop rail, with Edmund, Caspian and Eustace around her, Lucy could only ponder whether she had ever been so happy before in all her life.

Through the evening she had watched the ship's company sauntering about its business with a new vigour. Men had hummed through the most tedious of tasks; snatches of song had caught and hung in the air. The raucous laughter of Rhince had carried from stem to stern. Even Drinian, swaggering about the decks with a constant smile, appeared to have cast off his responsibilities, and have not a care in the world.

Only one person, it seemed to Lucy, had any regrets about their turning back the way they had come.

Caspian.

"It's done now, you know," she said firmly, plucking his sleeve. "And you'll be depressing the rest of us when we're all so happy. Stop it! Going to the World's End might have been an adventure, but as Aslan told you - surely you'll listen to _him_, even if not _us_ - you're needed in Narnia."

"A _king _is needed in Narnia," he answered sourly. "There is no overwhelming imperative that the king's name be Caspian."

"No, except that the chap who swore a coronation oath four years ago happened to be called that," said Edmund crossly. "Snap out of this mood, for goodness sake! It's only a few weeks ago you were moping about with a bad case of homesickness, and now you're acting as though you'd rather _not_ get back to Cair Paravel and all your friends!"

"Friends?" Caspian tried the word. "Nay; a king has subjects; councillors and servants. He may have a faithful and obedient people. But - friends?"

"I can see at least one person who'd be hurt to hear you say that," murmured Lucy.

They all followed her gaze to where Drinian sat, perched on an upturned wine cask on the main deck, lustily joining the singing of a shanty Edmund recalled from the days of the Four Sovereigns' galleon, Splendour Hyaline. Caspian's petulant expression softened.

"Aye, there's _one_ I know would be no less true were I mere Caspian the cottager. Still, even _that_ friendship must change. Drinian has his enchanting Daniela ashore. When he's wed, what time will there be for an old ally?"

"You don't believe that!" cried Eustace.

"It must be so, Eustace. I shall be more alone than ever."

"Not while we're still here."

"And how long has Aslan granted you? Time to see Narnia. Nay, you'll return to your own world, Lucy. None would have mourned me so greatly, had I gone with Reepicheep."

"You're just not going to be jollied out of this, are you?" Edmund refused to credit that a Sovereign of Narnia could behave so selfishly. "What about Trumpkin, or Cornelius? Or Trufflehunter? D'you think _Drinian_ would ever forgive himself if you'd swanned off into the great unknown from _his_ ship? Or that _we_ - or the crew - could say, oh, yes, I remember Caspian, vaguely?"

"Right!" Eustace thumped the poop rail in his enthusiasm, then wrung his stinging hand in dismay. "Ouch! Anyway, Caspian, you'd better pull yourself together, because you're _going_ back to Narnia now; unless you'd prefer to stay sulking on one of the islands; with the Dufflepuds, perhaps?"

"There is no cause for taking so high a tone to _Us_, Master Eustace."

"There's every cause; we're not your subjects, and we'll speak to you as we jolly well like!"

"Ed!"

"Hush, Lu, it's got to be said, and who better to say it than one of the Ancient Sovereigns of Narnia? Drinian knows, doesn't he? That you're sulking, I mean? That's why he's down there amongst the crew, not watching the fun from up here as he usually would."

"I - perhaps. I dare swear he finds my determination to _desert_ this afternoon impossible to forgive."

"_He'd_ never have done it, would he? No matter how great the adventure."

"No, Lucy." Caspian knew his bottom lip was beginning to wobble: _another unkingly act on a day of unkingly behaviour_, he thought miserably. "Drinian would not leave a duty half done; you noticed how quickly he supported Rynelf's contention, that my intention was the abandonment of my fellows? And in my heart, I know - knew, even then - that he was right.

"I _cannot _abandon my coronation vows: however onerous my duties may be, I am bound by my honour to fulfil them. And yes, I _do_ have true friends that would miss me. Forgive me! I find myself dreading a return to the stern formalities of kingship, that's all! Aboard ship, I have lived as one of a community; still distanced by my crown, perhaps, but with a freedom no King of Narnia has enjoyed before me. With this company I have experienced such wonders, and now…"

"The memories will remain to bind us, Sire." The deep, concerned voice made them all start. Eustace squeaked. Edmund jumped. Lucy's hands flew to her throat, to stop a shriek escaping.

"Goodness, Drinian, must you _creep about_ so?" she cried. "I didn't even realise you'd moved."

"My apologies, Ma'am. I happened to notice Your Highnesses in conclave." He had felt their eyes on him; felt the hairs at the back of his neck begin to prickle with the alarming realisation that his master's sullen humour had refused to lift. "Your Majesty…"

"No, Drinian. 'Tis _Caspian_ amongst friends, remember that."

"Aye. Caspian."

The younger man choked back a sob. "You cannot forgive me, can you?" he wailed, visibly steeling himself for affirmation.

Drinian sighed, one hand thrust back through his hair. "Hardly a question of _forgiveness_, as you put it: but yes, I can. I merely - confound it, Caspian! Tell me: do you think so poorly of your own, that you could leave us all so lightly? Do we - your _friends _- mean so little to you?"

There was such hurt in the usually confident voice that it brought tears into Lucy's eyes. "By the Lion, no!" cried Caspian, horrified. "I spoke without thought, Aslan made me see…"

"Did you remain because he instructed it, or because you accepted the wisdom of what he said? For I'll tell you plainly, as one that was your friend long before he became your subject: a reluctant king will be no _true_ king at all for Narnia."

Edmund nodded vigorously. Eustace, uneasy with emotional discourse, shuffled and looked away. Lucy almost wished she could do the same.

"None of our appeals to duty moved you," Drinian continued softly. "Why, until Lucy spoke of the lady, the Star's Daughter, naught could persuade you to abandon your scheme."

Caspian opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again. "He wasn't thinking properly," Eustace offered awkwardly. Caspian shot him a grateful look.

"Indeed I was not; but that is my folly. I heard Aslan's strictures, Drinian, and in them I recognised the truth of all you, Edmund, Reep, Lucy - even Rynelf, who must be rewarded when the time comes for his boldness - had said before. I am sorry, old friend - all of you. For weeks I've dreamed of turning west; now we have done so, and I dread the day I must return to ruling a realm. I've had no burdens aboard, and that has spoiled me."

"You may assume mine, should you require practise in bearing 'em," Drinian quipped, much relieved by the laughter in which Caspian heartily joined. "You never regarded your duties in this light before; or if you did, none of _us_ - the Council - ever guessed it!"

"No more did I, my Lord, until I experienced the liberation of this journey." Caspian smiled fondly at his friend's snort, before a thought that had been floating about the back of his mind since he had heard words of unofficial abdication coming from his own mouth came to the fore. "Ahem! You recall what I said, about the Inner Council selecting a new sovereign, had I not returned from the East… well, one name would most assuredly have occurred to Cornelius, Trumpkin and the Badger: you are aware of it?."

"The name of one that could never have comfortably worn your crown, King Caspian," came the short reply. "Hmm, I fancy the breeze begins to stir. Hi, Rhince! Topmen, aloft! Excuse me, Your Majesties, if there's the smallest chance o' the wind getting up, we'd best be prepared for it. Stand ready at the helm, Erlian!"

"He's off jolly sharpish," commented Eustace as his three companions burst into laughter. "What - oh,_ I _see! You were talking about _him_, weren't you, Caspian? They would have considered _Drinian_ for the throne, wouldn't they?"

"The greatest nobleman in Narnia; scion of a line as ancient as the House of Telmar: a man practised and proven in diplomacy, governance and battle. True, there's no blood connection to the old ruling House; but the only relations I have are the royal family of Archenland - out of the question - and a distant cousin, Isabella, who is Duchess of Beruna. Nay, Lucy; the prospect of a Queen ruling would not be repugnant to our good people, but Isabella… she's wed to an Archenlander, you know, and is by temper a retiring soul. Scarcely a creature in Narnia knows her mettle; a nobleman of proven abilities would be the better choice, should the Telmar line fail. Yes, Eustace; the instinctive response of the Narnian Council would have been to present the throne to my Lord of Etinsmere."

"He would have hated it," said Lucy with certainty. Edmund nodded.

"I'll say! Confined to the land, and always feeling your shadow over him… he'd have been miserable, and I suppose, being the decent chap he is, he might have felt _compelled_ to accept."

Caspian nodded slowly. "Indeed. Aslan reminded me that to quit my kingdom was to impose an unreasonable burden upon one especially dear to me; he could only have meant my oldest friend. Now, I wonder if Rynelf can be spared to continue playing for us? My Lord Drinian! If it be permissible, might we not have music from our shipmate's accordion as we sail? I should like, I think, to hear a song of home… the Ballad of Beaversdam, perhaps. Excellent! Come along, Lucy - Edmund - you must recall it, sing with the rest of us, it will make the hours pass more quickly. At your pleasure, Rynelf!"


	2. Chapter 2 Of courtships and kings

Author's Note: Apologies, this is the tedious chapter of explanation before the action starts. And though it feels like a betrayal of the book, I've had to give the Star's Daughter a name. I considered Ramanda and Riliana, but in the end came up, as a nod to her father's blood, with Celesta

_OF COURTSHIPS AND KINGS_

"I don't see why we can't leave it until we reach the Dufflepuds' island!" Eustace panted, dropping his end of a heavy sea chest, loaded with the galley master's tools, into the waiting boat with relief. "Corakin seemed a nice enough chap; surely there's a spell somewhere in his magic book for scraping a keel clean of barnacles!"

"Doubtless there is, young master," Drinian agreed, hefting a sack from each shoulder in after the box the boys had dragged between them. "However, we've a full month's journey - with a favourable wind, which shows no sign of blowing yet - to reach him. Shove away, Rynelf! Only two more loads to clear!"

The Dawn Treader stood beached on a narrow spit of sand just off the coast of Ramandu's island, stripped of her sail and rigging, her decks bare save for the last sacks and chests of ballast, provisions and personal belongings hauled from below by the better part of her crew. For several hours each day in her present position it would be possible for men to scrape and chisel down to the base of her keel, removing the ocean debris attached in half a year's sailing. The rigging could be replaced; the sail strengthened with patching where it had chafed, from wind, rain and the constant reefing down required in foul weather. In short, the whole ship could be scrubbed and made ready for the long voyage home to Narnia. Drinian, it seemed to Eustace, was thoroughly enjoying himself.

"Besides," the captain added under his breath as the oarsmen strained and the boat splashed away, "what is there on the Dufflepuds' island to amuse the King?"

"I like the way _he_ gets out of the work," Eustace muttered, dashing his damp brow. "Yakking about Narnia to Ramandu's daughter while _we_ slog ourselves to death!"

"Lucy thought--" Edmund began, before stopping to fix their friend with a very hard stare. "Oh, _you_ think so too, do you, Drinian? Caspian's rather taken by the Star's Daughter, isn't he? _That's_ as much why you've decided to overhaul the ship here; so he's got time to - to…"

"Court the lady? Aye, King Edmund, that was my thought, though the ship's in urgent need of a proper refit, and I should sooner trust good, solid Narnian labour than any magician's spells, however kindly he may be! Argoz and the rest will keep His Majesty safely on shore while we work; the Lady seems to me more than willing to bear 'em company. And better he make a match _here_, of his own choosing, than be driven into a diplomatic alliance, as his father was before him!"

"His mother was the King of Archenland's daughter, wasn't she?" Edmund wanted to know, meekly following Drinian back below decks to inspect the hold for any small item that might have been overlooked in their hasty packing. "Was it not a successful marriage?"

"The Queen was a gentle woman, and as much Telmarine as Archenlandish, being daughter to King Caspian the Eighth's sister," Drinian recalled, raising the single lantern high so its light could sweep into every last corner. "Aye, we're done; you can return to shore with the boat next time, if you'd prefer. She was frail, mind; after the King was born, she scarce ever left the old Telmar Palace. The late King, Caspian IX, tolerated her, but theirs was never more than a diplomatic union. I'd wish for better for their son."

"So would I!" Edmund agreed warmly. "She seems nice - the Star's Daughter. Anybody know if she's got a name?"

"If Caspian has any thought of carrying her back to Narnia, we must hope so!" Drinian chuckled, swinging himself up onto the main deck with the lamp still in his hand. "Queen Star's Daughter - _that_ would never do."

"Lu might have heard her name." Edmund clambered into the pale grey light more carefully, flinching from the bite of a strong wind into his face, blowing exactly the wrong way for westward sailing. "You think it could be - well, I mean… Gosh! What'll Trumpkin say?"

"Plenty, but how much of it will be to the purpose?" He hated to see his proud ship stripped bare, her mast standing forlorn and unadorned, but there was a long journey before them, whether or not Caspian added another passenger to their company, and it was his task to ensure the Dawn Treader was fit for the months to come. "There have been discussions within the Council as long as I've been a part of it, Edmund, on the question of finding a Queen. You remember I mentioned the Duke of Galma's daughter…"

"The squinty one with the freckles, yes." On the shore, he could see Caspian, the Lady at his side, with Lucy and the four long-lost lords at their back, watching Rynelf steering back toward the Dawn Treader. Drinian grinned.

"The Duke offered her as part of a full alliance between us," he said, heaving up another sack in readiness for the boat pulling alongside the port bow. "Cornelius was greatly in favour; our isolation, during Miraz's years, was complete."

"There's always Archenland; she's a more valuable strategic ally, if Calormen is still our potential enemy," Edmund reminded him. Drinian (Eustace thought) looked almost embarrassed.

"Aye, but the close blood tie between the two Royal Houses must be remembered, and we've a treaty of mutual assistance signed with Lune the Eighteenth more than two years ago, for all the use Archenland would be in conflict! I served eight years with their fleet, I saw their fighting capability. We should be better off alone!"

"At least she's a buffer, between us and Calormen."

"True, and better use to us as a paltry ally than an enemy. Now, if you're ready to go ashore with this next load, I can manage the last. Rynelf! One more and we shall be done: does Rhince have the working parties assembled?"

"Aye, Captain."

"And Master Pittencream?"

"Seems glad enough to be amongst his fellows, Sir." Drinian arched a brow, his gaze lifting to the knot of men on the beach, the straw-spiked mop of the recalcitrant Pittencream prominent amongst them.

"I doubt he found that much to say to the Star and his Daughter," Edmund murmured. Eustace sniggered.

"Or Rhoop and the others when they woke up. All right, Drinian, we'll head back to land. Come on, Ed, it must be lunchtime! I'm _famished_!"

"First sign of work…" Edmund muttered. Eustace grunted.

"Second, actually, or did you not notice what we've been doing, lugging these great heavy weights about all morning?" he replied good-naturedly, clambering forward into the bows of the little craft. The boat rocked alarmingly as Drinian tossed down more stores and the men at the oars stowed as much as the stout little vessel could bear. A shout from the sole remaining figure on deck, and the oarsmen pushed away, Rynelf turning the prow to face the shore.

"D'you think he's right?" Eustace whispered, plucking at his cousin's sleeve. "About Caspian and the lady, I mean?"

"Probably." Lucy might allow her romantic imagination to run away with her, but not Drinian. "I mean, she _is_ awfully pretty, and she seems clever, too. He had three years in Narnia to find a wife and didn't. Hi, Caspian! Drinian says we can start work on the hull after lunch!"

"Hm? Oh, yes, very good, Edmund." The King never took his eyes off the Star's Daughter, even as he spoke to his friends in the boat. "Madam, will you allow me to walk you back to the table?"

"Gladly," said the Lady, in her low, sweet voice. Caspian blushed.

"See!" Lucy whispered, leaning into the boat to help drag her brother ashore.

"Drinian thinks so, too," Edmund confided. "Lu, we'll have to keep the four lords out of his way. I think Drinian's got enough work planned to keep the crew from interfering, but the lords…"

"Understood." Her heart skipped a little at the prospect. _Goodness, I really am growing up_, she thought, only half regretfully.

* * *

For the next five weeks, Drinian kept his men busy about the ship, while Caspian evinced a curiosity about Ramandu's island to match anything he had shown on the eastward journey, and the Lady equalled him with her interest in tales of Narnia. Lucy and Edmund formed a secret pact to distract the newly-awakened Lords: save for Rhoop, whom Eustace undertook to occupy, being altogether too fond of horror stories. His former shipmates appeared only too glad to leave Rhoop's ghoulishly gleeful retelling of the agonies he had suffered left behind in the Darkness to a more appreciative audience than themselves. 

Caspian thought his admiration for the lady carefully concealed, which amused the men all the more, for every second conversation revolved around His Majesty's hopes and the likelihood of his success. Drinian tried to prevent too much open gawking as the pair progressed, stately, along the coast, he offering his arm to assist her where the path became uneven, she pausing here and there to point out an especial view. The faint sound of mingled laughter carried down the bay; once, Rynelf claimed, he even saw the King stoop to brush a strand of long, loose yellow hair from her face.

And if the men stared in frank defiance of courtesy toward her, the Star's Daughter returned their scrutiny in full, causing titters and blushes among the most hardened tars. Inside a week, she could address every man by name.

Eustace was impressed. Edmund and Lucy nudged each other and smiled. "She'll make a good Queen," said Lucy.

"She'll look the part," agreed Edmund.

"Always assuming Caspian gets around to asking her," muttered Eustace. "Oughtn't he have _done _something by now?"

Every evening at sundown, the crew would troop up to the laden table to dine and gleefully discuss their day's progress, waiting expectantly for an announcement to be made. And each evening, the Lady Celesta - Ramandu's daughter _did,_ to the relief of one and all, have a name - would sit beside the King of Narnia and serve wine to him and his noble friends. Ramandu, the aged Star himself, they never saw.

Until the day he came to speak with Caspian, at his daughter's request. With the Dawn Treader finally refloated, her rigging all new and freshly tarred, her hull scraped clean and painted bright, her sail restored to a pristine sheet, and her hold stuffed to the brim with provisions from the magical table, an end must be made to speculations. Caspian asked; the Lady accepted. The assent of the father was required and duly, even gladly, given.

The men of the Dawn Treader were therefore the first Narnians to kneel in homage before their future Queen, and every man expressed himself delighted with the King's choice. The Lady Celesta, though she confessed to being not a little nervous, prepared with great excitement to leave her lonely island. And Caspian, unable to wipe the great grin from his face, took the opportunity of the company being occupied in boisterous celebration, to detach the other betrothed gentleman of the assembly from the campfire to discourse (at great length) on his happiness.

"And thank you, old friend," he added seriously, when he had finished counting off his beloved's virtues and enumerating the reasons he had for thinking himself the luckiest dog that ever breathed. "Your connivance, in granting me time to win her, has been noted and appreciated by us both."

"From the little I've seen, I believe she will make you a fine wife, Caspian; the best any friend could wish for you." A wicked grin twitched the corners of Drinian's mouth. "And besides, if I'm to lose my freedom on reaching home, so should you!"

"Freedom!" scoffed the King. "I think Celesta and Daniela will approve of each other, don't you? I hope so! It would be simply unendurable, were _our_ wives to loathe the sight of each other! Now, come, we should return to the table, before Revelian and the others realise we're gone. Glad I am to have released them from their enchanted sleep, but gladder shall I be to deposit them back on their own lands in Narnia! Have you ever _heard_ so many questions as we've had from them?"

"Think o' the years of talking to catch up, Your Majesty," Drinian answered dryly. "I think - if the lady is agreeable - we ought to embark tonight. The wind's turning for us at last, and the dawn tides are most favourable for our sailing. If you and she will make your farewells to her father, I'll gather the men aboard."

Caspian nodded. " As Revelian once said, _out oars for Narnia_, my friend. My lady! Celesta, we are to board the Dawn Treader tonight. Drinian suggests we go to your father now, while there is still ample time for farewells."

The Lady smiled and extended her hand. "Then I shall show you his residence, Caspian," she said softly. "We will not delay the ship, my Lord--" this to Drinian. "My father and I have had sufficient time for preparation. We will join you on the beach presently."

Drinian bowed to the woman who would, some day soon, be his Queen, and tossed a wink to the boyhood ally who was also his King. The ship was in pristine condition; Caspian had done his part. There was no longer any reason to loiter about on land.

He, for one, was only too eager to be on his way. Caspian was not the only Narnian with a wedding to plan, the instant they reached home, after all.


	3. Chapter 3 Stormfish

_STORMFISH_

On the seventh day out from her father's island, the Lady Celesta swayed from the poop with a smile for the man at the wheel, down the main deck and along to the forecastle, where Lucy (who had crept out from their shared cabin at sunrise) was leaning on the bow rail, peering westward. Everyone knew Queen Lucy missed the company of Reepicheep, with whom she had shared the forecastle many sunny mornings on the eastern journey. The Lady Celesta nodded to her betrothed, smiled at Edmund and Eustace, who stood beside him, and made her precarious way up the forward ladder. "You really do rise uncomfortably _early_, Lucy," she informed her friend lightly. "One would think Drinian had assigned you to lookout duty!"

"I wish he would; it'd give me something to do!" Lucy smiled. "Golly, you've still not got your sea legs at all, Celesta!"

The future Queen of Narnia sighed, resting her elbows beside her predecessor's on the bow rail. "Anyway," Lucy continued, "I should make a hopeless lookout, and Drinian knows it! I'm far too easily distracted by the silly, unimportant things, and the man on watch has to concentrate, all the time, on the bigger picture."

Seeing how the phrase puzzled her companion, Lucy hastened to clarify. "A ship's lookout has to see in a wisp of cloud whether it's trailing a storm behind it, not whether it looks like a rabbit - see, there are the ears, the pointy end might be its twitching nose…"

Celesta stared up at a fluffy white swirl of cloud to the south. "I _think_ I see," she said, "but really, it looks more like a toad on a log to me!"

"Nonsense! And where _I_ see the patterns the whitecaps on the waves make, a sailor sees a tiny change in the water's colour that might indicate a drastic rising of the seabed. A lookout can't maunder off into thinking how pretty the fish are - look, see, rolling on either side of the bow, they're actually _shimmering_! Oh, _surely_ you can _see_ them!"

"I can see nothing!" Celesta wailed, hanging over the rail so her long golden hair curtained her perfect face. "Lucy, 'tis the glint of the sun on the waves you see, nothing more!"

"Goodness, there are _dozens_ of them!" cried Lucy, pointing with more vigour, as if by her enthusiasm her friend's sight might be sharpened. "They're sort of - sea coloured and shiny, but you _must_ see the way their fins slice the surface - look! There!!"

"I - yes, I see!" The Star's Daughter had never left her father's isolated island before; the smallest thing delighted and astonished her, something that (Lucy thought) boded very well for her arrival in her new land. "Oh! They are _beautiful_!"

They craned over the bow rail together, pointing and exclaiming with delight at the array of creatures, ranging from minnows to giants twelve feet in length, that skimmed just below the waves, a glittering moustache before the ship. Such was their concentration that they failed to catch the swift tread of boots on the planking behind them, and the low, amused voice of the ship's young captain made them start almost overboard.

"Any further forward and we shan't need a dragon's head for a prow figure! What has you so fascinated, Queen Lucy?"

"Drinian! Oh, do look, _you _must know what these fabulous fish are called!" cried Lucy, shifting away from Celesta so he might slide between them and stare over the rail.

Just as quickly, Drinian turned away, striking a deliberately nonchalant pose with his back to the water and his arms loosely folded across his chest. "Turn around, ladies, if you please; nice and casual, as if we're discussing aught and naught," he said, keeping his words low, though the tone in which they were spoken brooked no argument. "And not a word to anyone about our being surrounded by _those things_."

"But what _are_ they?" demanded Celesta, even as she obeyed. Most people tended to, Lucy considered, when Drinian spoke so seriously. "And what harm can they do? I never saw anything so lovely!"

"Their true name, Ma'am, I never heard; but the legends attached to those pernicious brutes are familiar to every sailor. Aye, Your Majesties, join us; it won't do for the fellows to see us all so grim."

"Oh, do stop being mysterious, Drinian!" cried Lucy. "Tell us what you can about those pretty fish!"

"What fish?" asked Eustace, shoving his way past her to lean over the rail. Strong brown hands grasped his shoulders; though he squeaked a protest, he couldn't prevent himself being spun around.

"No, Eustace! Pay heed, and whatever you do, _never_ look those monsters in the eyes."

"What's wrong with their eyes?" The supremely self-assured Captain was seriously rattled, and Edmund (who had been shaken more times during the course of the journey than he would ever dream of admitting) was intrigued to know why.

"Whatever it is, rest assured _we_ did not stare into them, my lord," stated Celesta, a touch defiantly. Drinian visibly - to one who knew him as well as Caspian - choked off the irritable riposte rising in his throat.

"I know that, Ma'am; had you done so, you'd not be standing on deck talking to me now!"

"You're talking riddles, Drinian," said Caspian crossly. "All right; none of us will peer overboard, if it will satisfy you, however _pretty_ these _fish_ of Lucy's may be: on condition that you explain _everything_ to us_ immediately_!"

The promise of co-operation had its intended effect. The fine lines of tension about Drinian's eyes smoothed; the stiffness of defiance left his shoulders. He gestured to the bench, still known as Reepicheep's, where the Mouse and Lucy had often played their chess on the long journey east. The boys sat; Caspian moved to lounge beside his fiancee against the bow rail.

"Well, Your Majesties, those brutes are a notorious omen of ill fortune to every mariner. Shining Sharks, they're called; either that, or, more commonly, Stormfish."

"Sharks?" Celesta looked distinctly alarmed. "Would they eat us, if we fell overboard?"

"Nay, Ma'am, they're more cunning than that; and greedier, too. I never came across them before, but I first had the story of their habits from an old Galmian sailor that had personal experience. The first traveller that looks into their eyes is overcome by a compulsion to dive overboard. That's when the danger, to his ship's company, becomes severe."

"Why? The worst they can do is eat the chap," argued Edmund.

"If only it were! Nay, the sharks will surround their victim, and in the time it takes a captain to heel his ship about to the rescue, the hapless seaman has become one of _them_: he's transformed into a hungry shark, with all its appetite for fresh blood."

"That's impossible!" scoffed Eustace. "You mean, they actually turn a _man_ into a _shark_?"

"On the inside, Eustace, aye; that's what makes the menace so grave. The floundering sailor is rescued; brought back aboard by shipmates only too glad to see a fellow spared from drowning. They never trouble to peer close enough into the man's eyes, and it's there - so my Galmian friend said, and I've heard it from others since - that the only physical change is apparent.

"The ship resumes its journey, and its crew never suspect they have a killer in their midst. A man falls from the rigging - an accident, of course, folk say, it happens on the best-run ships. The body is committed, as is custom, to the waves. And there, the sharks - the real ones - are waiting to devour it.

"I've heard of companies being decimated by a single shark-man. Accident following accident until someone sees the hand that pushes some poor fellow from the yardarm; the alarm's raised, and the human shark goes insane, killing in cold blood and open sight, until he himself can be killed and fed back to his masters."

"Just as well you didn't look into their eyes then, Lu," said Edmund, not believing a word of it.

"That creatures so lovely could carry such evil!" marvelled Celesta, who doubted not a part of what she had heard.

"What a narrow escape _we _have had!" added Caspian, who was willing to suspend disbelief, seeing that his friend had such faith in the tall tale. "Come, Drinian, we have reason for cheer, why the scowl? Only we are aware of the monsters' existence!"

"Aye." If he heard more than half the sentence, Lucy would have been surprised. "There's the second part of their legend, mind; the part that gave their more familiar name to those brutes, and we have to pass that before we congratulate ourselves overmuch, Caspian."

At the top of his voice (making them all start) he continued. "Topmen aloft! Reef and furl! I fancy those wisps o' cloud mean we've a storm chasing us from the east!"

The men of the Dawn Treader were, Edmund was convinced, the most obedient and efficient crew he had seen in centuries of Narnian sea journeys. They admired their commander above all men; his lightest word was enough to have them leaping to their stations.

Yet confronted with this order, on that perfect, blue-skied and windless morning, they hesitated; there was a second of stillness hung over the decks before instinct had them scrambling up the ropes to hoist and secure the great purple sail.

The question they dared not ask rose naturally to the lips of their sovereign. "What in the world are you _doing_, my Lord? I never saw a day set so fair!"

"The other name for those creatures, Sire, is Stormfish," replied the Captain crisply, setting off aft for the poop at a pace that had his companions trotting to keep up. "They trail foul weather on their tails, a punishment for them that fail to sate their bloodlust."

"I never thought to hear such a foolish sentence from you, Drinian!" cried the King. "Honestly! I mean, there's scarce a cloud to be seen, and…"

"Cap'n!" The anxious bellow from the Mate stopped whatever Caspian might have had to say. "Look at them clouds, Sir!"

Everyone turned where he pointed, aft and to the north, from whence a great bank of dark grey was rolling, blotting out the sun. Lucy seized Edmund's arm.

"Just from the direction those hateful fish have come!" she whispered, trying not to sound as scared as she felt. "Oh, Ed, they do look vicious!"

"There were naught behind it a second ago, I'd swear to it!" the Mate was protesting. "I dun't know how the Cap'n saw…"

"Get below, Your Majesties," Drinian instructed sharply as he flung himself at the wheel, perfectly sure two men's strength at least would be necessary to hold any kind of course soon. "All hands! All hands on deck!"

Caspian lurched across the poop for the aft hatch, forcing it open just as the first wave lifted the mighty galleon to its crest as if she were a cork on a pond before dropping her, nose first, down into the broiling greyness of an angry sea. Lucy, Celesta and the boys fells after him and, more by luck than judgment, they contrived to land in the Great Cabin, which was the accommodation of the Narnian queens past and future for the westerly journey.

"Phew!" whistled Edmund, trying to spit out his mouthful of sea water discreetly. "Maybe there's more to these old seamen's tales than I used to think!"

Celesta produced crisp, harsh towels from the sea chest beneath her bed and tossed them to her companions. "Drinian plainly thinks so," she said. Caspian, trying to blink the salt from his stinging eyes, snorted.

"And unless it be the most ridiculous coincidence, his belief is justified; those infernal creatures really do trail the storms on their tails. Perhaps even the most _outlandish_ myths can have a kernel of fact to them, after all!"


	4. Chapter 4 Better the generous fool

Author's note: The title's rubbish, but I can't think of a pithy one. I always wondered what outrage of Duffer idiocy caused the Magician to cast his _uglification spell_: and I've realised, too late, I misspelled his name in a previous chapter. Sorry!

_BETTER THE GENEROUS FOOL_

The vile weather Drinian had been predicting set in with unremitting ferocity on the tails of the Stormfish. Celesta went down with a severe case of seasickness and Eustace, too, got the odd greenish colour about the jowls Lucy remembered from his first disastrous day aboard. Her precious flask was produced from the ship's medical chest and its contents dosed to the sufferers: while it relieved their symptoms, it did nothing for their tempers. King Caspian's bride, it was discovered, could pout quite as massively as Queen Lucy's cousin.

"I _do_ hate these incessant storms," Edmund grumbled, scrunched into a corner of the Great Cabin with the rest of the passengers as the galleon kicked and bucked against the restraining hands of her crew. "And hark to that _rain_!"

"I should go onto deck if it weren't so ghastly heavy," Eustace agreed, from the edge of Lucy's cot. Caspian, wedged against the far end of a sea chest where the ladies also sat, snorted.

"_If_ my Lord Drinian would allow it!" he cried. "I never saw him in such a growling humour as when last I put my head through the aft hatch. A knot incorrectly tied caused a tearing in the mainsail. I rather think I overheard the threat of _keel-hauling the confounded laggard_ responsible."

Edmund grinned. "We're best out of the way, then," he said, angling himself to peer at the angry darkness through the porthole. "Pass the chess set, Scrubb. Caspian's not exactly Reepicheep, so I may actually have a chance of winning a game!"

"_There_ is a challenge no King of Narnia can refuse." Caspian and Lucy switched places, and tedium was pushed away by a close and competitive game which was interrupted only by the lookout's desperate hail. Land!

The Dufflepuds' Island loomed before them, a murky smear across the horizon that flashed into sharp focus when whipcrack flashes of lightening wrenched the sky. "No depth o' water for a galleon close enough in for shelter, Your Majesties!" Drinian bawled, waving in the general direction of the shore.

"We _must_ pause here!" Caspian's innards lurched. "We should never reach Burnt Island without watering first!"

"There's land betwixt 'em, beggin' Your Majesty's pardon."

"Impossible, Rhince." A squall brought water sluicing across the maindeck, making sailors skip and hop into the rigging. Drinian hissed, his glance slipping instinctively to the tightly reefed sail bunched like a raised blind beneath the stout trunk of the mainyard. "His Majesty has expressly forbade our setting foot on _that_ island. Have the men to the oars; we'll creep as close to the lee of those sou'western hills as may be, and ride out this damnable storm at anchor. Your Majesties' pardons, all."

"Don't mind us," said Edmund promptly. "It's bally awful! D'you think it might die off late in the day?"

"That must be our hope, King Edmund, else we shall have a rough row into the Magician's cove." Eustace and Celesta could be heard mumbling at the prospect, but Drinian, cheerfully immune to seasickness, thought only of the unfortunate oarsmen. "If you'll excuse me, I ought to take the helm myself. Low land and shallow water are any captain's enemies. Rhince! Man the capstans! Prepare to anchor on my signal!"

* * *

At length the sky lost some of its charcoal gloom; the wind dropped enough that Drinian ordered the boats be lowered, and as soon as dinner was done the whole crew clambered down for a wet and wild row ashore. The Dufflepuds, a riot of gaudy colour, hopped madly on the wet sand to greet them. 

"Three cheers for the little girl!" hollered the Chief, his tasselled cap flapping back to strike his unfortunate neighbour in the eye at the top of every bounce. "Put it across the old gentleman right and proper last time, she did! Three cheers!"

"Three cheers! Three cheers!" yelled his followers, circling the startled Narnians in a whirling mass of scarlet, lime green and canary yellow. Edmund edged backward, which only encouraged them to press closer.

"Gosh, they were less frightening when one couldn't see them hopping into one's face," he muttered.

"Ow!" Eustace gave him a sharp push. "At least they don't tread on a fellow's foot!"

"Sorry."

"We're proper glad to see you, Missy," the Chief announced, bounding though a bow before her.

"Proper glad! That's our Chief, and he tells it as it is! Proper glad!"

"Can we go back aboard now, Captain?"

"Quiet, Rynelf!"

"Tempting, is it not?" said Caspian, leaking the question from one corner of his mouth.

"We'll feed you dinner!"

Amidst the supporting chorus, Caspian's protest was all but drowned out. "You are most generous, sirs, but we ate before quitting our ship."

"Why, then we'll give you supper instead! Nothing like an early supper."

"Nothing like it!"

"We can't have supper straight after dinner," Eustace protested. "We shall be sick!"

"Oh, no, not sick!" exclaimed the Chief, squashing his features into an expression of surprised dismay. "You'll not be hungry 'til breakfast time, that's all. Lads, cook up potatoes and custard for these fine people. Potatoes, custard and sardines!"

"Now I shall _certainly_ be sick," Lucy groaned through her fingers.

"Here comes the Magician!" shouted Edmund. The confused babble of Dufflepud voices died to silence.

"Welcome, King Caspian; Queen Lucy and King Edmund. Welcome, my lords and gentlemen all."

Lucy had not been struck by his dignity she had first met the Magician; but then, he hadn't been amid the undignified scrum of Dufflepuds, either. Suddenly he seemed much taller; and a great deal more powerful.

"Sir." Caspian stepped forward. "Glad are we to reach your island's lee from these turbulent gales."

"Indeed, you have had harsh weather for your journey. Pray, Captain, speak all your ship's wants to me before nightfall; I shall attend them."

"You are very kind, Sir." A seemingly endless list of small breakages for repair rolled instantly through Drinian's brain.

"Might I present, my Lord…" Caspian began. The Magician raised his hand.

"There is no need. Daughter Celesta is known and welcomed as dearly as any visitor to these shores."

"Father Coriakin." She leaned forward, laid her smooth young cheek against his withered one. "From your brother Ramandu, greetings."

"The rare mortal child of one Star is daughter to all his brethren in constellation," Coriakin explained, before Eustace or the Chief could question. "Narnia is blessed in the bride you have chosen, Sire."

"No more than am I," Caspian responded, making Celesta colour and the Dufflepuds cheer, swarming around the Narnians on the path to the manor.

"You must rest before supper," Coriakin told them. He lifted a wrinkled hand and light flashed in every upper window. "Rooms stand ready for everyone; ask, and we will provide."

"A hot bath for me!" declared Edmund.

"Dufflepuds, hot water!"

"Have it with you instantly, Magician, we will," the Chief promised. "Why! Don't we boil up enough hot water every morning for a hundred hot baths?"

"A hundred at least, Chief! That we do!"

"But if you boiled it this morning, it'll be quite cold again now!" Eustace pointed out gloomily. "Bother! A steaming hot bath would be heavenly, too!"

"Oh, no, young feller!" The Chief led a babble of shocked demurrals. "We're not simpletons, whatever the old man here might say! We keep our cauldrons over the fires all day, we do; hot water the moment you want it!"

"You ignorant _fools_!" Coriakin seemed to grow ten feet tall in anger. His hollow, pallid cheeks flushed an unbecoming crimson: suddenly Caspian understood perfectly why the Dufflepuds had shrunk from sending their own daughters into his house. "How many times must the cauldrons be burned out by this madness? Can you not comprehend, in the bombastic certainty of your imagined brilliance, that heat continually applied will destroy?"

"Hark to him, mates!" shouted the Chief, though his defiance might have been more impressive were he not concealing himself among his followers. "Right clever soul he thinks himself, him and his magic book! Let the water go cold again, wouldn't he?"

"I will not be mocked by imbeciles!" The Magician raised his long, thin hand in the direction of the crowd, and Edmund could see the glow of magic about to be unleashed curling under the skin. The Dufflepuds huddled together to whimper, cry and moan.

"Stop it!" Lucy launched herself in front of the pointing fingers. "They may not be _clever_, but they don't mean any harm. You're a beastly bully! Stop it!"

"Lu, out of the way!" muttered Edmund, tensed for the sizzle of a spell that would change or vanish his indignant sister. The air hissed with the sibilant pull of steel against scabbards; Narnians standing ready to defend their outraged little Queen.

Lucy and the Magician stared at each other. His raised hand dropped, the aura of power dissolving to leave it once more a withered, fragile old limb. Contracting into himself, he appeared to shrink; to age.

"You humble me, Queen Lucy, justly named _the Valiant_," he sighed as the Dufflepuds began to emerge from a quivering huddle behind her. "With a wave of the hand I can fill hot baths enough for all your subjects through history, and yet I choose to terrorise these foolish creatures _because I can_. You see why I am descended from the heavens as punishment; not, as my brother Ramandu, for honoured rest."

"They mayn't get cleverer, sir, but you can learn to be kinder," Eustace told him, a touch wistfully. "Anyone who wants to can do that."

"Well spoken, Master Eustace," said Drinian, guiltily aware of recent failings in that human endeavour. Coriakin hung his head.

"The arrogance of these harmless fools should remind me to temper my own; instead, it is the generosity of your spirits I must thank for my lessons. Go inside; every room has a hot bath waiting; only speak your will, and the scents you find most pleasing will fill your chambers."

"Pinewoods!" cried Edmund.

"Fresh roast beef!" exclaimed the galley master.

"Aye, cooked by another!" called Peridan mockingly as they streamed into the house and up the stairs. Shaking his head at the chorus of Narnian jeering, Caspian followed the throng, between Celesta and the Magician.

"And what scent," she wondered, "does the King of Narnia choose to fill his chamber?"

He stopped at the foot of the stair, letting the raucous voices of their companions fade away. "I think," he said, breaking into a broad smile, "it shall be the old leather of my study's chair, at Cair Paravel. That, and Cornelius' parchments for signature. Why, does not every man, in truth, prefer the smells most associated with his own home?"


	5. Chapter 5 The phoenix people

_THE PHOENIX PEOPLE_

Silence, lethargic and unwelcome, hung over the damp cluster of humanity huddled around a dying bonfire. In high spirits on their eastward journey, they had christened this bleak, low land Burnt Island. Its existence had been proof, if it were needed, of the necessity of their quest. Though its blackened, ruined buildings had depressed them, the sun had shone, and all eyes had turned to the horizon with hope.

Now, the days were growing shorter and the weather wilder the nearer to Narnia they sailed. Once ashore there was no respite from work: not even for the passengers, accustomed to idleness afloat while the crew laboured. There were scores of unskilled, arduous tasks to be performed in refitting and restocking the Dawn Treader. All hands were called upon.

It was the end of their third day on the lonely island, devoid of life and scarred by the reminders of fire. Lucy hated the place - she had from the first moment she set foot there - but she understood the decision Caspian and Drinian had made. They would water and provision their gallant ship to the uttermost here, though it meant delaying. They would, in so far as was humanly possible, spare Eustace the awful reminders of his past adventures by using the last of the previously uncharted islands, Dragon's Isle, for the shortest of wooding and watering expeditions. And then they would press on, ever westward, first for the Lone Islands, and then for home.

If to spare her cousin they must work twice as hard and three times as long in the wind and rain on an island without other life of the most basic kind, Queen Lucy the Valiant, like the most humble member of the ship's company, knew she had to accept it.

And in her present dog-tired state, with her dinner of salty biscuit and tough beef laid heavy on her belly, Queen Lucy decided she really couldn't care less.

"I would suggest," said Caspian, in the toneless voice of utter exhaustion, "that we seek out what scant shelter these benighted half-burned trees can offer us from the rain. I dare swear we've another long day's work on the morrow."

"I'll stand first watch, if it please Your Majesty - Cap'n."

"As you will, Rhince." As people wrapped themselves about in heavy sea cloaks and squeaking, waterproofed oilskins, Drinian flashed a weary smile at his second-in-command. "Not more than a two hour stretch, mind. That's right, Eustace; stamp down the moss you intend to stretch out on, oilskin over the cloak. Little enough protection, I know; but more than these so-called trees can give us!"

"I'll let the fire die off of its own accord, Sir," said the Mate, saluting sharply despite the cloying numbness of his limbs. He propped himself up against the crumbling and blackened trunk of the largest tree around their camp, humming softly as his companions settled themselves for the night.

Inside five minutes the shuffling and scuffling of people trying to make themselves comfortable on bare ground had stopped; the only sound was the occasional slight snore. Rhince toyed with the hilt of the cutlass at his belt, a single thought playing over and again in his mind.

_Mustn't fall asleep. No, certainly not, mustn't fall asleep. Mustn't fall…_

A stentorian snore boomed over the chorus from the main camp. His head tipping onto his left shoulder, Rhince slept as sound as any of his overworked companions.

There was none to cry a warning, then, when the very ground beneath the Narnian party began to stir. To change. Lucy whimpered in her sleep, snuggling into a hollow that sank under her weight. A twig cracked sharply. Nobody moved.

A long, scrawny shadow fell across his face. Rhince stirred.

Something hummed. Another twig snapped, nearer, beneath a broad, bared foot. The shadows moved.

"Wha's that?" Rhince's eyes flickered open. A pair of large, amber ones stared uncomprehendingly into his. "Cap'n! Your Majesties!" he hollered. "We'm surrounded! Get yer 'ands off me, feller!"

"Who are you?" Caspian yelled, being dragged roughly to his feet. "What do you want?"

The answer came in a succession of quite incomprehensible clicks and grunts. "Perhaps you ought not have asked," said Celesta fearfully. "They seem terribly fierce!"

"It's all my fault," moaned Rhince, struggling as manfully as any to escape the clammy grasp of two wild-haired, grey-skinned creatures that seemed determined to bind his wrists with a green, slimy twine. "I should've kep' a better watch!"

"Small chance you should have had alone," Drinian shouted, between curses aimed as his assailants. That the struggle was obviously useless did not, in his opinion, mean one ought to give it up; these creatures, though small, were strong, but so were most of the Dawn Treader's men. If just a few could break free…

"Ow! What do you want from us?" Lucy couldn't bear to look into their grimy, wild-eyed faces. "They look like madmen!" she wailed.

"It's all right, Lu." Edmund aimed a kick at the ankle of the savage who was roping him up to his sister, and received no more than a click of the tongue in return. "At least they're keeping us together!"

"What for, though?" shouted Eustace.

"Dinner, probably!" muttered the girl.

Nobody felt confident enough, she noticed, getting really frightened now, to contradict her. Mute, sullen, the Narnians, outnumbered and surprised, allowed themselves to be roped into a gloomy line of humanity and pushed, jabbed and kicked into movement, up the rearing slope inland, with their strange, jibbering escort surrounding them.

"I don't wish to sound unobservant," said Drinian at length, "but does anybody remember seeing this confounded _mountain_ in daylight? There was a conical hill, but naught _this_ steep I can recall!"

"He's right, you know," said Eustace, before he tripped over a crumbling, decayed tree root sticking from the chalky soil. "Erm, thank you, Mr…"

The man - he thought, anyway, the creature that dragged him upright was probably male, judging by the charred piece of rabbit skin it had knotted (_like a nappy_, he thought, momentarily cheered by the rude image) around its hips - thrust his face close to the boy's and hissed a cinder-smelling breath. "Urgh! All right, sorry, only being polite. They smell as if they've just come out of the fire!"

"Just hope that's not where they're taking us, young master!" said Rynelf, next in line, a bit breathlessly. Celesta hoped none of them would recognise her shrill little shriek of laughter for the signal of raw terror it really was.

They were marched relentlessly, over rocky ground and past trees stunted and hideously twisted as if by some enormous gale. At the fore, Caspian and Drinian continued to wriggle their hands, trying in vain to free themselves from the thin, plant-like cords that cut deep into their flesh. "Hopeless," the King admitted under his breath.

"Aye. How can an island change form so quickly?"

"And do you hear that noise?" The King was getting more and more alarmed; he hated the shrillness in his voice that betrayed the fact, but even Reepicheep (he was sure) would have allowed _this_ predicament to be unnerving. "Like - like a giant's stomach rumbling. There! Again!"

"That's no stomach, Your Majesty." said Drinian flatly, feeling his own drop with sickening realisation. "_That_ is coming from the island itself! Did you not feel the mountain shiver then?"

"Is it an earthquake?" asked Lucy fearfully as, further down the miserable chain of captives, others echoed the Captain's deductions. "Is the island going to collapse and swallow us?"

"Don't spout rot, Lu; you're scaring Celesta," Edmund chided nervously.

"P'raps it's going to blow up?" suggested Eustace, not very helpfully.

"Look at the slope!" Erlian yelped. "It's rising, Your Majesties!"

"Can't be," said Eustace.

"Jolly well is, though," said Edmund, who would have stopped, had not one of the savages given him a hearty shove. "All right, all _right_! It's deuced difficult to climb a mountain that's never still with one's hands tied!"

He received a volley of clicking sounds. "Charmed," he muttered.

"Don't argue with them, Ed," begged Lucy. "I shouldn't like to make them _really _cross! Ouf, what's that _horrid _smell?"

"Rotten eggs!" cried Eustace disgustedly, wrenching at his bonds. "Yuk! I wish I could hold my nose!"

"It's sulphur; look, there's almost a mist of it," said Edmund, as people began to cough, the sickly yellowish dust seeping into their lungs.

"It's awful!" choked Lucy, stumbling in his wake. "Ugh! I think the Clickers _themselves_ smell of it!"

"So'll we, if we don't get out of it soon," her brother predicted gloomily. "Hi! Look, there are _hundreds _of them!"

Everyone squinted through the acid haze ahead, to a place where the very mountainside seemed to heave with the throng of half-naked, grimy and sulphur-streaked figures. The crowd surged forward; the ears of the Narnians were assaulted by shrieks and grunts as bony fingers with enormous nails jabbed and prodded. "Lay off!" Rhince howled, as Caspian, Edmund and Drinian tried to shuffle into a protective huddle around Lucy and Celesta

"I'm all right, honestly," said Lucy, not sounding it at all. "Oh, Ed!"

"A cave!" shouted Caspian. "All right, we understand! They want us inside the cave."

"It has a fire!" Celesta threw herself forward, until the bite of twine in her wrists yanked her back. "Oh!"

Beyond the fire, which gave out more smelly smoke than heat, wrapped in fur as snowy white as his hair, sat a wizened, withered figure with bright orange eyes. He clicked sharply with his tongue.

And all the other _Clickers_ fell on their knees: those at the fore and aft of the captive group pulled hard on their tails of twine, bringing the Narnians down with thuds and yelps. "What is the meaning of this - this outrage?" exclaimed the King, suspecting he was facing his equal at last. "Who has the _audacity_ to seize the King of Narnia?"

"Eee-aaaa-ooouuuu-eeee-aaahhh!" yelled the Clicker King.

"Oooo-aaa-eeee-aaa-oueeeee!" chanted his followers

"Eeee-quuuaaa-iiiieeee-ooouuahhh!"

"Oh, be _quiet_!" shouted Eustace, thumping the sandy floor with his knuckles. The Clickers ignored him.

The fire seemed to rise and dance in rhythm with their ghostly chanting. Thick clouds of acrid smoke swirled from it, setting the Narnians coughing and blinking, while affecting their captors not a whit. "This is - horrible!" choked Lucy, trying unsuccessfully to bury her nose against Edmund's shoulder.

"I can't - breathe - properly!" spluttered Caspian.

"They'll choke us then cook us, wager me life on it!" muttered Rhince, sounding (Lucy thought) more annoyed than afraid of the prospect. "Savages, they are!"

The Clickers began to dance; or at least, that's what Edmund assumed they were doing, with their arms whirling and their feet stamping as they spun in a circle around the frightened prisoners, pushing them back in a tight know, ever close together. "Look at their eyes!" Lucy squeaked. "They're _alive_!"

Bright orange eyes, Caspian noted, fiery eyes that glinted and flickered like flames. He shuffled backward, cursing as something sharp cut into his fingers. "Drinian! Hold still here, I think - a sharp stone; I _think_ I can cut my bonds on it!"

No more was necessary. Though it wasn't easy to remain still, with the Clickers shrieking in one's face and puffing their poisonous breath over one, neither man moved while Caspian wriggled and swore, manipulating his knife-sharp stone between his wrists and cutting flesh as often as he did twine. Blood was dripping; he could feel its heat rolling into his palms. But he kept resolutely on, and at last - at last! - the fibres of the rope snapped. He was free!

"I think I can probably cut you free, Drinian," he muttered, leaning until he was shoulder to shoulder with his neighbour. "But I may cut _you _as much as the ropes, if my own experience is any guide."

"I shall try not to bleed _noticeably_, Sire."

"Oh, don't be such a confounded _courtier_!" said the King with a grin.

Industriously (and not a little nervously) he grasped the rough knife and began to hack away, judging by the muffled hisses when he had cut through flesh instead of binding. At length, Drinian too could snap the last thread of the rope and, cautiously, offer the same service to his neighbour on the left, Edmund.

And as the bloodied tool was being passed one way, exciting news was coming the other. "Peridan thinks there's a tunnel through the rock from the back of the cave," Lucy hissed shrilly. "I say! What's happening to the Clickers?"

It was a question worth asking; for one by one, with sighs and moans, the dervishes were falling from their madcap dance, rolling onto the floor in tight balls of humanity. "Are they dying?" whispered Celesta anxiously.

"Poisoned?" suggested Rynelf.

"I think not." Greatly daring, Lord Argoz leaned over to prod the figure closest to him. "This one is breathing; he has a pulse."

"Let's get away while we can," begged Lucy. "They'll wake up soon, and then they'll be hungry!"

"If they intended to cook us, Lu, I dare say they'd have done it by now." Edmund was measuring the distance between their party and the cave entrance, over the sleeping forms of their captors, with alarm. "We'll never get out without waking them. It'll have to be Peridan's passageway."

"Agreed." Caspian cast a last longing look to the obvious way out. "After me, everyone. Swords at the ready, men; Lucy, an arrow on the string. At least they left us our weapons!"

"Fancy they've never seen their like afore, Your Majesty," said Rhince, putting his great bulk between the royal party and the entrance. "I'll go first, Cap'n."

"If the tunnel's wide enough for the Mate, Sir, the rest of us needn't worry," joked Pittencream warily. Rhince snorted.

"Aye, an' if I gets stuck, you'll all be there to push me on," he agreed, edging forward. "'S plenty wide enough - aye, an' high, too; needn't even bend me 'ead!"

Much encouraged, the whole crew hastened into the circular passageway, shuffling in the pitch darkness. "Never mind my sword; I'd sooner have a torch," muttered Eustace. "Ouf, sorry, Ed, didn't mean to run into you."

"Try not to do it again, then." The tunnel rose steeply; it was hot and airless, and Edmund quickly discovered he needed all his breath for climbing. So, evidently, did his companions. Within a few minutes, silence had descended. If anyone had the energy to spare for talking, he lacked the inclination. And at every instant, they expected to hear the unearthly, wailing chants of the Clickers in pursuit.

"Roof's gettin' lower," Rhince hissed after a while. How long had they been clambering, grabbing at the walls for support, Lucy wondered. In the dark and the quiet, time lost its meaning; it might have been a minute, an hour or a day since they had tiptoed out of the main cave. "By Aslan! There's light ahead, Cap'n! Two points off the starboard bow!"

The landsfolk of the company glanced left and right in alarm; the sailors looked up to the precise spot Rhince named. "Daylight!" murmured Rynelf wonderingly. So he, too, had not expected to see the morning sun again, Lucy realised.

All at once everyone was smiling, eager. A few minutes more and they were beneath a gaping hole in the mountain, breathing clean air and clearing the last of the sulphur from their lungs. "How are we to _get_ there?" Celesta wanted to know, making a helpless little hop.

"I _think_ I see a foothold or two." Drinian ran a hand up the uneven rock face. "Why, it might be a ladder! Stand aside, Your Majesties."

It was a scramble; the foot and hand holds were small, cracks in the rock that just allowed a determined fellow to keep himself secure. Panting, his black hair plastered to his brow, Drinian finally clambered into open air and turned, his low whistle carrying back into the mountain's heart as he considered his new surroundings.

"We're just below the summit, Your Majesties," he announced, poking his head back into the shaft. "All right, Rhince, hand up Queen Lucy, and make haste! There's something afoot, and we don't wish to be caught up in it! Hear how the whole _island _rumbles!"

One by one, they kicked and scrabbled their way up the shaft, emerging tousled and breathless onto a plateau above the sulphuric mist. "Gracious!" cried Lucy, dusting herself down "We must be right at the top of the mountain!"

"It's not a mountain, Lu." The acrid heat; the movement of the earth; the ominous grumbling; even the orange blaze in the eyes of the Clickers: all the clues pointed Edmund to the same horrible conclusion. "It's a volcano, and it's active!"

"_Very_ active," seconded Eustace. "Which way to the boats?"

"South-east; quickly!" As his crew began to charge downhill, disappearing into the vile yellow clouds, Drinian caught Lucy's hand. With Caspian pulling Celesta, and Eustace being (none too delicately) heaved along by Rhince, the three slowest members of the party were accounted for. Edmund took to his heels and ran.

How _long _he ran before the clouds began to thin and the rugged upper slope soften into the gentle gradient of a grassy hill, he could never have said, afterward. He ran blindly, trusting to the sound of his companions' footsteps to guide him. "What about the Clickers?" he vaguely heard Eustace cry.

"What of 'em?"

"We can't leave them to die, Caspian!"

"Speak for yourself, young master!" bawled Rhince. "Wha's the island doin' now?"

"I think it's splitting in two!" shrieked Celesta. "Look!"

Sure enough, west of the Narnians, a fissure was opening up; with the rippling, tearing sound of a million sheets of calico parting, the hillside cracked apart, bringing a slow, crackling ooze of molten lava to the surface. "Tha's what their eyes was made of!" shouted Rhince.

"Quickly!" Through their night's camp without pause to salvage any of the few possessions scattered there, beyond twisted trees now smouldering and smoking in the hot, damp air, across the narrow strip of pebbled shore and, with a splash, through the shallows and to the trio of little boats anchored under the ruins of the building that had given the Dawn Treader's broad anchorage its name of Cottage Bay. Lucy fell into the foremost boat head first, and had barely time to right herself before the other passengers could pile aboard. Even before Caspian had tumbled in beside her, Drinian and Rynelf were shoving the boat into deeper water, and a dozen of their fellows were hauling hard on the oars. "Look to the mountain top!" Caspian shouted hoarsely.

Around the cone atop the volcano, the Clickers kicked and whirled their dervish dance, seen from the sea between rising whorls of smoke and steam. "They must be wiped out!" cried the Star's Daughter. "Aslan, help them!"

"Never mind helping _them_," Edmund retorted, dashing the sweat from his brow. "If that mountain blows, _we're_ still rather too close for comfort, if you ask me!"

To Lucy it seemed the personal danger was remote; something that might harm another person, but not her as she stared, awed and terrified in equal measure by the raw power of the exploding island. "I never saw anything like it," she whispered. "What's happening now?"

With the roar of a thousand thunderclaps, the top of the mountain hurled itself at the pink-streaked sky. Down all four sides of the mountain gushed a dazzling red-gold flood of fizzing, crackling lava, studded here and there with black dots, hands and feet just visible before they burned away. "The Clickers!" screamed Lucy, hiding her face against Edmund's shoulder. "Oh, I can't look!"

"We ought to have tried to save them," whispered Caspian, no less horrified.

"I'm cold," said Eustace flatly. "No, honestly, I'm _really_ cold; can't you feel that icy wind blowing?"

"The island!" The shout came from the next boat, under Rhince's command; that gigantic bellow, Caspian was sure, ought to be audible at Cair Paravel. "It's freezin' over!"

"It _is_, it _is_!" Lucy blinked once, twice. The wind whistled across the three exposed boats, swirled around the island, instantly cooling the broiling lava flows into solid, dull grey rock. "The mountain's gone! It's just plain, lonely old Burnt Island again!"

"Even the _trees_ are the same as when we first landed, going east!" Eustace muttered, rubbing his forehead hard. "I don't - I didn't _dream_ the eruption, did I?"

"Not unless we all did," answered Edmund sensibly. "Caspian - Drinian - what do you make of it?"

"There's not a sign of _them_ - the Clickers," murmured the King, regarding his oldest friend with wide, astonished eyes. Drinian bit his lip.

"I wonder," he murmured, tweaking the tiller a fraction to bring the boat into line with a rope ladder hanging over the galleon's side. "Remember, Sire, the legend, supposedly brought by the Conqueror's army?"

"Lion's Tail, which _one_?" asked Caspian crossly. "There are a hundred legends attached to the doings of our ancestors, at least!"

"Fancy the Captain means the Isle of Fire story, if it please Your Majesty," offered Purlian from the aft oar. Caspian's mouth fell open.

"The - the Phoenix People?" he stammered. "The strange creatures whose home was engulfed by flames, and who rose out of the ashes at moonrise? I - by Aslan! Could it be _they, _whose land lay farther from these seas than Narnia, could have knowledge of such a thing?"

"You're being mysterious again!" wailed Eustace (quite unfairly, Lucy thought). "Who are _they_, and what's the _legend_?"

"The legend," said the King, very solemnly, "came to Narnia with my ancestor Caspian, known as the Conqueror; who had for a captain in his army one Tirian, the only Telmarine that dared take ship against his master's enemies. Ennobled Master of Etinsmere, he is our own bold Captain's direct ancestor. All we Narnians of Telmarine stock have remaining of Telmar are _the legends_ brought into _our_ homeland by such men as they."

"The Phoenix People were wild men that lived on a distant isle, consumed at every starless night by great fires, to rise again with the new moon," continued Drinian, guiding the boat gently to rest against the Dawn Treader's high, protective side. "Oh, they're as much a part of fairy-tale as the Diamond Island and the Grey Ghost of Table Hill; or so we always thought!"

"Aslan told us the Telmarines were originally seafarers in our world," Edmund recalled, stupidly relieved to be climbing back aboard the gallant galleon, though any danger the island posed them was obviously past. "Perhaps when they first came to this world, they explored more than is actually recorded in the official histories. Who's to say they didn't go looking, by ship, for other lands than the one they found themselved dropped into?"

"And they came into in these Eastern Seas, seeing the very same things we've been seeing," Lucy agreed. "Gracious! Are we going to wait tonight, to see if the Phoenix People _do_ rise up from the ashes?"

"Not if this wind keeps up," answered Drinian, completely the Captain again. "The anchors are dragging a touch; and I shouldn't like to be beached on a coast so unreliable as this one!"

"Nor should I; we can't be _sure _how often the whole island blows up, and _we're_ not phoenixes," agreed Edmund solemnly. "Phew! And we thought we'd had all the adventures possible going east!"

"We shall have to delay longer - I'm sorry, Eustace, but there's naught for it - on Dragon Island now," Drinian warned them. The boy nodded.

"I'll be all right; but I'm not wandering off on my own, and that's flat! Maybe we'll find out what happened to Lord Octesian while we're there!"

"After discovering the secret of Burnt Island," said Caspian, shooing his friends toward the poop deck and the hatch that led from there to the cabins below, "I should say anything may be possible! Very well, Captain; we shall continue westward at your discretion. Can we have the galley fire lit? I think we all would benefit from a mug of hot, mulled wine!"


	6. Chapter 6 The fate of a friend

Author's Note: There's one mystery they couldn't reach home without cracking. Was the old dragon Octesian, or somehow responsible for Octesian's death?

_THE FATE OF A FRIEND_

"I'd like to go and see that waterfall," said Lucy suddenly, making Edmund pause in the act of lifting his spoon to his mouth. Porridge dribbled off the end, staining his green hose with a brownish puddle. "The one we saw from Eustace's back when we were here last. We _do_ have time for a little exploring today, don't we?"

"I see no reason why not," Caspian set his bowl aside with a merry smile. "It falls just beyond yonder hills to the north-east, across the valley, if I recall correctly? No great climb; we could be there and home easily before darkness."

"There's a way through the woods; I had rather sharp eyes as a dragon," said Eustace, quite immodestly.

"Oh, do let's go!" cried Lucy. "Ed, say you'd like to come!"

"I think I should, if we've time."

"All the time Your Majesty needs," answered Drinian promptly. "The Dawn Treader stands fit for sailing, and it will do the men no harm to take a day's leisure while Your Majesties explore."

A low murmur of appreciation ran among the crew. "A day without duties would be of benefit to you no less than to them, Captain," said Caspian, smiling through the formality. "Come, now! No man has worked more hours than you!"

"My job, Sire. Rynelf, Ugrian, fill flasks for Their Majesties and gather supplies. You'll need nourishment for your journey."

"Celesta..."

"I shall come with you, Sire." The Star's Daughter rose in a swirl of sea-green skirts. Beside her, the Lord Revelian clambered more awkwardly to a vertical position.

"As shall I, with Your Majesties' approval."

"Of course, my Lord," said Caspian, startled. "Is there, perhaps, a particular reason..."

"Aye." The burly man's broad brow furrowed. His voice dropped. "In that direction did my cousin, Octesian, set off, the last day I saw him living. It may yet be we shall find some clue to his fate."

"Oh. The Lords Mavramorn and Argoz..."

"Told me often not to dwell upon his disappearance, Sire. They will remain idle here, with Rhoop."

"And what, I wonder," mused Celesta, raising her sweet voice a fraction, "of my Lord Drinian, Sire? Will _he_ accompany us on our exploration, do you suppose?"

"It would do no harm for my Lord Drinian to sleep the day through; but I hardly expect such a laggardly course of action to appeal." Caspian grinned in his friend's direction. Drinian, deftly knotting a small pack of bread, ham and biscuit together, grimaced over his shoulder.

"I may sleep away a week, when Your Majesty is safe restored to Cair Paravel," he countered. "But permit that you scramble about unfamiliar mountainsides unguarded? Trumpkin would have my hide! Now, there are packs for everyone; shall we be away?"

"Lead on, Eustace." Caspian offered his arm to Celesta; Drinian, Edmund and Revelian set picnic packs on their backs, and to a chorus of cheers from the crew, they all followed Eustace at a trot inland, passing through the first line of trees and immediately onto the gently rising hills that formed the first ring of the bay's defences.

The climb, over one hill, then another, was stiffer than Eustace had anticipated. "It looked easy from up there," he panted, perfectly aware he could never have made the ascent on the eastward voyage, before the chubbiness of his arms and legs gave way to at least a certain degree of toned muscle. "You all right, Lu?"

"Just about." She used the trees as support, he noted, annoyed he hadn't had the same idea himself; pulling herself up the increased gradient from one to the next, clutching at Edmund's hand, or Caspian's, or Drinian's, when the gap between was too great. "Golly! How long have we been going?"

"For ever," gasped the Star's Daughter, one hand on the niggling start of a stitch burning into her side. Revelian paused, offering his hand. "Thank you, my Lord. There are no such hills on my father's island!"

"It's this infernal _scree_ we're scrambling over makes it so deuced difficult," said Edmund sensibly, the last word coming out high-pitched as he fought the splits. "Bother! One can't see where one's feet are going in these trees, either!"

"Two of our men broke limbs while searching through these woodlands for my cousin, King Edmund," Revelian told him, broad chest thrust forward to break his way through the last screen of branches and into daylight. "Aye, we scoured these hills and valleys a full two days, before giving him up for lost. Like Restimar on that isle you named Deathwater - not a trace!"

"They can't have searched very hard," muttered Eustace.

"Which may be just as well," whispered Edmund. He shielded his eyes with one hand, staring across the breadth of a flat valley to the sheer cliff face on the other side, where a great curtain of water dropped, diamond-edged, to broil and bubble before flowing onward, south and west across the low ground, toward the sea. "Golly! It's a lot bigger from ground level!"

"A lot noisier, too!" added Lucy, cupping her ears. "Come along! We'll be there easily in time for lunch!"

The closer they trekked, the more impressive the waterfall became, the louder its roar and the more brilliant the colours caught by the sun's rays in its haze of hanging spray. They forgot to talk, to share impressions, content instead to stare, cataloguing sensations for later consideration. When at length they stood beside its foaming basin, staring up the grey rock face to the lacy collar of water at the summit, Lucy felt smaller and feebler than she had ever been in her life.

"Magnificent," murmured Caspian, his eyes screwed up to squint into the heart of the cascade. "Eustace! _Must_ you scrabble about on these rocks? They must be permanently damp - be careful!"

"I'm all right; just want a drink!" The boy was balanced precariously on the largest of a ring of boulders around the foot of the fall, doubtless made of the same pale grey rock as the mountainside, but kept darkened and mossy by the constant settling of spray. "Gosh, it's _fresh_; like being in a shower! Do come and look! Ow!"

"Eustace!" Careless of the condition of the rocks, everyone lunged forward onto and over them, sliding and scrambling to the boy sitting heavily in a large, chilly pool kept constantly filled by droplets tossed up from the waterfall's base. "Are you all right?" Lucy squealed, arms flailing. If Revelian hadn't been right behind to stop her, she might well have made matters worse by slithering in on top of him. "Golly, we're all going to get soaked! This _spray."_

"I'm all right." Getting up wasn't easy, even with Drinian and Celesta on either side, trying to hold him up. Eustace scowled down at a smooth, rounded boulder, smaller than most and slimy with moss and lichen. "That dratted rock slipped under my foot. Anyone think to bring any dry clothes? Or a towel?"

"That," said Celesta seriously, releasing his arm, "is no rock, I think. Sire..."

Caspian picked his cautious way to the little boulder Eustace accused. Gently, he raised it. Lucy's hands shot to her mouth.

Beneath the slime of lichen, two gaping holes gave the impression of staring as the eyes that once had filled them might; the upper bone of a prominent nose stood out jaggedly between them. "It's human," Edmund whispered. The King turned it in his hands. "Look!"

Low down, roughly behind the right ear, a single large crack had splintered into a dozen tiny trails, leaving the bone resembling a frozen pond at the onset of the thaw. At the base of the main crack, rude and rough-edged, sat a small, round hole.

"Octesian." The gruff voice of Revelian broke on the last syllable. "But how…"

"Simple enough, I suppose," said Edmund. "He came exploring, as we have; started scrambling about on these dashed slippery rocks, took a tumble and…"

"He must have been lying unconscious here while we crashed about the woods calling his name." Revelian couldn't tear his eyes from the human fragment in Caspian's hands. "His head broke apart on these confounded damned rocks, freezing to death as the night drew in… With Your Majesty's leave, we shall bury him honourably before we leave the land where he fell."

"Of course," Caspian agreed, both brows raised at the strange look that flashed over Eustace's face. "Oh."

He laid the shattered skull reverently on the springy turf that surrounded the riverbank. "It may be, my Lord, that we find no more of your kinsman's bones. This island is not without its wild creatures. We ourselves, in the course of our easterly journey, did encounter a carnivore of the most voracious appetite."

"There was a dragon," Eustace blurted, loud enough to make everyone stare. "It had an arm ring."

"Master Eustace penetrated the beast's lair," Caspian hedged, feeling uncomfortable on the boy's behalf: though he made no secret of his misadventures, it was painful for everyone to have them publicly discussed. "Within it he discovered an amulet, bearing the hammer and star device of Octesian's House. It was that first advised us, my Lord, that your cousin passed no farther east than this place."

"A dragon." Heavily, the burly man sank to the ground, bringing his linked fingers up to his mouth. "While we thrashed through undergrowth and bellowed his name from the hilltops, my cousin was laying helpless, to end his existence a mere supper to an abominable carrion beast!"

"Your Lordship must not blame himself." Celesta stopped over him, curtaining the angry tears that spiked his lashes with her flowing hair. "Nor damn the dragon, that its instinct is abhorrent to ours. The Lord Octesian fell victim to an unhappy accident, naught more."

"Indeed, Ma'am; and a wound such as _that_ to the head would assuredly have been his death, even had his companions the fortune to find him still breathing," said Drinian. "Look to the hole! A sharp stone he struck, to cause such a wound! I've seen arrow heads that have done less damage!"

Revelian nodded, reaching out to stroke the battered skull. "Let this be buried close to the bay, where we anchored his final morning. And let us return there swiftly, lest the beast that devoured him still be hovering…"

"It isn't," said Edmund, taking advantage of their being back to dry ground to give his cousin's arm a firm pinch. Eustace glared at him.

"And it didn't have a mate, either," he added, his voice high and aggrieved. "Oh, come on! How would I have got into its cave, if there were two? Shall we start back, and have lunch somewhere else? I don't feel hungry, somehow, having found _that_."

Neither, it seemed, did anyone else. Drinian wrapped the last remnant of the Lord Octesian in a piece of canvas made from one of the packs; Caspian stuffed the food uncovered into his, though the sight of it made his stomach turn. Silently, gloomily, the Narnians turned their backs on the fatal waterfall and set off back across the valley, toward the coast.


	7. Chapter 7 Preparation is everything

_PREPARATION IS EVERYTHING_

"The sun!" cried Eustace, pointing in mock astonishment. "There's actually still a sun!"

"Don't be drawin' attention to it, young feller, it might get shy!" Peridan advised from the lookout post behind them. The little knot of bored passengers on the forecastle laughed.

"Winter at sea," announced Caspian, with all the final authority of his sovereignty, "is _beastly_!"

"We're past the worst, Your Majesty," Drinian assured him, pausing on his determined march aft from the prow. "Another three months or so, and we'll be sighting Cair Paravel."

Faces brightened. "I _would_ say, six weeks," the Captain continued teasingly, "were I not sure we shall be dragged from _fete_ to _banquet _and back at every confounded island betwixt this point and Narnia!"

"You'll allow us but six weeks to divide between Narrowhaven, Redhaven, Port Terebinthia and Galamaia, my Lord? Ungenerous, surely!" boomed Revelian.

"My Lord High Admiral would allow us but a day ashore at each, were he granted his way," put in Caspian, with a tolerant smile to Celesta. "Still, we must forebear his unsocial ways; he has not, as I have, the company of his lady for the length of the journey home."

"And unlike His Majesty, I've no tolerance with court formality," Drinian parried, content (in the absence of a crisis) to tarry in idleness with his friends. "If Duke Bern has his way, we'll be delayed a full month at Narrowhaven alone, and my joints begin to creak; harbour rot, they call it."

"He loathed the sea," remembered Argoz, smoothing his silver beard. "He swore he would defy Miraz's desire for his death, but no power would have persuaded him to sail on beyond the Lone Islands."

"Had I been less the coxcomb, I should have done as he did," said the smallest and quietest of the three lords, Mavramorn. "But no: I was too vain to confess, I was tired of sailing; I left Narnia merely to deny Your Majesty's traitorous uncle the satisfaction of my death."

"I doubt there was one of our party did not long for the courage to do as Bern did," admitted Revelian. "Oh, we were unwilling mariners, Your Majesties! Our ship and her crew were all Galmian; we could find none in Narnia to carry us where Miraz commanded we go."

"Was naught ever heard of our companions, then?" Argoz had asked the question several times; hoping, Lucy thought, against hope that the next answer he received might be different. It never was.

"I should guess they turned west at the Star's island; and most likely, they were wrecked in foul weather between there and the Lone Islands," said Drinian gravely. "The Galmians have a fine reputation as mariners, but the best of their shipwrights are halfwits, and the rest lubbers! That a galleon of Galmian construction survived to carry you so far still amazes me."

"She was naught to your Dawn Treader, our Maiden of Galamaia," Revelian affirmed. "The terrors we endured, riding a storm in her! Many nights I wished myself quiet in a Narnian grave, not seasick and storm-tossed in her main cabin!"

"It will be the work of years you see, my Lord Drinian, to make all Narnians such enthusiastic mariners as you would wish," Caspian joked. His friend shrugged.

"So be it, Sire; but look what's achieved in the first four years of your reign. Not a dozen of this crew had sailed so far as Galma before volunteering for this service; yet we might have crewed four Dawn Treaders from the applicants that came forward at you call!"

"And we could have chosen no stouter set of shipmates than we have," agreed the King warmly. "Rewards were promised them; and how they have been earned!"

"Captain!" The voice from the forward lookout post rather (Edmund thought) challenged Caspian's lauding of his shipmates' courage. Peridan sounded distinctly nervous. "There's a right broilin' afore us, Sir!"

"Rhince!" Instantly Drinian was leaning over the forward rail, scowling into the turbulent whirl of water dead ahead. "Hard a-starboard! Sailmen, stand ready!"

"Hard a-starboard, Cap'n!" came the echo from the poop. Oh-so-slowly the ship began to heel, her course curving away from a foaming patch of greyish ocean, an entirely different hue from the rest of the sea. "What _is_ it?" cried Lucy.

A moment later, she was wishing she hadn't asked.

A deep, throaty roar seemed to swirl up through the bubbles gathering off the port bow; it was followed by a huge, rounded head that reared high as the ship's side, grey-green with overlapping scales, like plate metal armour, and covered with barnacles. The wave its rise from the seabed sent up crashed against the hull, setting the galleon to bucking. "Hold _on_!" yelled Caspian, clinging to the rail.

"What _is_ it?" repeated Lucy, in unison with Eustace.

"The reflective sheet!" Drinian yelled, sending three men lurching at top speed down the forward hatches. "The Kraken, Your Majesties!" he added, by way of grim explanation. "Hold her steady as you can, Rhince!"

"Doin' me best, Sir!" howled the Mate, who was actually swinging from the great wheel.

"It's coming at us!" squealed Celesta.

"It's _enormous_!" exclaimed Edmund, as the beast reared, blunt and squat, from the swirling waves. "Just look at its_ teeth_!"

"I should much rather not!" Caspian told him, fascinated all the same by the long, sabre-curved teeth bared in a gigantic snarl. "Hold tight, Lucy, another wave!"

"What do we do?" yelled Revelian, hanging onto the rail with one hand and his neighbour Mavramorn with the other.

"We'm here, Cap'n!" Erlick, the senior sailman, had the harsh accent of the borderer, sharpened by exertion as he helped heave a large, tight-folded parcel up from the hold. "Haul it aloft, Sir?"

Drinian seized one corner, shaking it to reveal a dazzling sheet of flexible, dwarf-wrought silver, beaten down to the thinness of tinfoil, before lunging at the ropes which climbed, intricate as a spider's web, up around the mainmast. "Away aloft!" he shouted, keeping one eye on the laborious, splashing approach of the beast. Erlick, appointed to his duty for being the most agile seaman aboard, had to race, hand over hand, up the starboard side of the rigging to keep pace with his commander. "What are they _playing_ at?" Eustace demanded of Caspian, panic making him peevish.

"Aslan alone knows!" From the yardarm, the horizontal beam across the top of the main sail, the two men were casting their shining burden: tails of rope fluttered at the corners, which were seized by Rynelf and Pittencream. "Too bright! I can't look!"

"Don't try, Your Majesty." Pittencream instructed. "Ready, Captain!"

The Kraken, Edmund decided, swam the breast-stroke; dipping down to rear again, sending a wash ahead from the water its bulk displaced, it came on remorselessly, its goggling, bottomless eyes fixed on the Dawn Treader's suddenly delicate forecastle. Light flashed past him; a tweak of the silver sheet, he realised, catching, concentrating, _directing_ the sunlight. "_I_ see - I think!" he shouted.

"Eyes shut below! And hold on!" The monster was close enough now. Wrapping one arm around the stout trunk of the mainmast, Drinian twisted his corner of the reflective sheet, his movement matched by Pittencream on the deck rope below. The sun's feeble glow took fire on the shiny surface; with another deft flick, the four men on the corners had turned the blinding flash, firing it straight into the staring eyes of the Kraken.

Lucy felt the heat of it burn against her eyelids an instant before a sound of horrible anguish erupted from the monster's throat. Down, down the Kraken dived, for the safety of the dark seabed, its awful scream echoing in their ears long after its horrible, staring visage was gone from their sight.

The Dawn Treader was thrown skyward; so violent was the wrenching of the sea that Lucy's feet were lifted from the solid oak deck. "Oh, my!" she wailed.

Her voice was drowned by the shouts, curses and howls of her shipmates as they clung for dear life to any solidly attached object they could snatch at, but her shoes touched the planks again, and her awful grip of the rail relaxed. The ship continued to surge on the sea's unnatural swell; but of the monster that had caused the uproar, there was no trace to be seen.

Much more slowly than he had gone aloft, Drinian clambered down, dragging his quarter of the burning-hot sheet behind him. "Resume our original course, Rhince!" he called aft to his deputy, suddenly bone-deep weary. _Shock_, he diagnosed. _Crisis upon uproar upon near-catastrophe!_ "Ship's company! To the oars! The more distance we can put between ourselves and that brute's lair, the better I shall feel!"

There was good sense behind the tired words, and the whole crew knew it, if the alacrity with which they scuttled to the oars was any guide. Under the combined power of sail and oars, the ship made rapid progress. Inside an hour, the place where the Kraken reared had vanished behind the eastern horizon. And only then, Lucy thought, did everyone begin to relax and see the humour in their most recent real fright.

"'Tis not the place of my Lord High Admiral to be scrambling about the rigging, Drinian," the King informed his friend sternly. Narnia's most senior sailor snorted.

"The duty of a captain is to do what ever he might to preserve his ship. And might we hope that Your Most Excellent Majesty will cease to _bleat_ about the _needless expense of hauling a great sheet of dwarf-beaten silver from one end of the world to the other_ now?"

"Had the purpose of the _reflective sheet_, as I believe you called it been explained to my Most Excellent _and Serene_ Majesty before…" Caspian drawled. Drinian's lips twitched.

"Oh, very well!" the King exclaimed, throwing up his hands. "I admit it! I objected to the insane expense of _that_ object, and Your Lordship--" using, Lucy thought, his friend's land title as a deliberate provocation "--never saw fit to inform me of its proper usage"

"I think you might find I _did_ draw Your Majesty's attention, in my first report on the feasibility of the quest, to the necessity of taking precautions against the menace of the deep ocean's creatures," replied Drinian, not noticeably offended. "Against the Serpent, true enough, there _is_ no defence, saving the beast's natural stupidity, but the Kraken is known for its horror of bright light; explains why it's so seldom seem at high summer."

"We had no such careful consideration before _our_ voyage," remembered Revelian ruefully. "Hence our ship almost being smashed apart: had not our master bowman struck an arrow into the monster's eye, not a month before we reached the land of Your Ladyship's noble father, _our_ adventures would have ended there and then!"

"Just as I told Your Majesty when the prospect of this quest was first raised," said Drinian, positively (Lucy thought) preening. "Preparation is _everything_ at sea."

"And what _preparation_ had your Lordship made," wondered Celesta, who had learned quickly from her fiancé when it was permissible to tease their Captain, "for the possibility of our coming upon a Kraken at midnight?"

"The only preparation available, Ma'am." With a grin, Drinian directed their attention to the sconces placed at various points along the ship's side. "The only defence against the Kraken in darkness is to light a torch, let the beast come athwart, then thrust the flame into its face. I'm told only the stoutest vessels can endure the buffeting of the wash a full-grown adult throws up in diving down below the keel, but don't fret unduly; we should be most unlucky to meet _two_ o' the brutes during the same voyage!"

"Most reassuring," said Celesta doubtfully. Caspian chuckled.

"Had you ever encountered one of that species before, my Lord?" he asked. Drinian shook his head.

"Not I, Sire, though I heard tell of them from old comrades of the Archenlandish fleet. They seldom attack ships in established seaways; it means a bitter winter, when the Kraken or the Sea Serpent ventures into what might be termed the _familiar_ seas."

"I'll be jolly glad to see the Lone Islands, then, if where there's more traffic, there are fewer _nasties_ lurking in the water," said Edmund.

"Aye, the _nasties_ are more likely to be on the surface once we're past the Lone Islands, King Edmund; pirates, wreckers and the like." Drinian, thought Eustace, was actually looking forward to tangling with the more familiar, human perils between the Dawn Treader and home.

In comparison with the Kraken, he decided, suddenly cheerful, so was he!


	8. Chapter 8 Old dogs, new tricks

_OLD DOGS, NEW TRICKS_

Drinian's announcement at breakfast that he expected to be anchored off Narrowhaven before nightfall, Lucy thought, had had a quite magical effect on the ship's company. People started to smile; and though familiar seas can hold quite as many terrors as unknown ones, the mere knowledge that land is never more than ten days away is enough to give one permanent hope. "Dear old Lone Islands!" cried Caspian later, clapping his hands as the passengers idled the afternoon away. "I'll wager Bern has them restored to perfect Narnian government by now!"

"If any of the islanders remembers what _perfect Narnian government_ might be," said Edmund, who hated to be the wet blanket, even when somebody had to be. "How long had it been, since anyone from the mainland last went to inspect them?"

"Over three hundred years, King Edmund," said Revelian. "And Narnia herself forgot what _good government_ was under Miraz."

"By _our_ standards, my Lord, Narnia has lacked proper government for several centuries," said Caspian sadly. "If, by the term, we mean a government that considers, in equal measure, the good of _all _its citizens."

"We came a long way in three years, Sire; and with Trumpkin in command, there'll have been no backsliding in your absence." Drinian, a telescope tucked under his arm, abandoned the poop to join them at the point of the bows. "Your Lordships will find your homeland much changed; but for the better."

"It no longer has _Miraz_ in it, my Lord; which of itself makes it a healthier place!" said Revelian grimly. "I shall be glad to see the changes four years and more of Your Majesty's rule has wrought."

"Land ho!" yelled the lookout from the fighting top. "Half a point nor'west, Cap'n! Land!"

"Only a half-point out, and after twenty-three days in open sea," marvelled Mavramorn. "I congratulate you, my Lord!"

"Aye, we can allow ourselves a half-point's leeway," agreed Drinian (not a little smugly, Caspian noted affectionately) as he raised the telescope to his eye. "Make the correction, Rhince!" he shouted aft to the grinning Mate. "Half a point, nor'west!"

"Aye aye, Cap'n! Half a point, Sir!"

Before long the island was a solid thing; not the faint blue smudge Lucy had first detected. Real hills rose up; coves and bays cut into the coastal cliffs. Slowly, even trees, cottages, became clear.

"Captain! There's a ship, Sir, tackin' out from the shore; see, from the southern quarter! Looks like a schooner!"

Drinian squinted, shading his eyes. As his hand stretched out, Celesta dropped the required telescope into it. "Thank you, Ma'am," he said, quite automatically.

"Aye, she's a schooner," he confirmed a half-minute later. "And steering for the larboard bow! Ship's company to battle stations! Master Bowman to the fighting top!"

"Pirates?" asked Edmund, almost disbelieving. "They can't catch much booty _this_ side of the island! How often do ships approach Doorn from the east!"

"Most likely Bern has made the westerly bays dangerous for them," said Mavramorn, scratching his flowing moustache. "We encountered a rogue vessel off the Seven Isles on our easterly sailing, Your Majesties; a vicious rabble! We had quite a battle to prevent them coming aboard!"

"We were menaced by their kind off Terebinthia," recalled Caspian. "But - seeing us well-armed - they very soon stood off. These appear to be stouter fellows!"

"I'll say!" The schooner was skimming along under full sail, making straight for the Dawn Treader; from either side of her hull emerged several long oars, scything through the calm sea and giving the ship the look of a gigantic insect crawling across a page. "Oughtn't we bolt for it?"

"Yes, please!" said Lucy. "She's moving awfully fast!"

"Hold a true course, Rhince." Drinian, it seemed to his old friend and sovereign, was trying desperately not to laugh. "Man the forward guns. And run up the King's banner."

"_What?_"

The men of the ship's company, unlike their royal passengers, would never openly question an order from their commander; but they hesitated, frozen in their positions, at _that_. "These will not fight, Sire," said Drinian, calmly offering his telescope to the King. As he raised it to his eye (and his neighbours snatched glasses from whichever sailor would offer them) Caspian gave vent to an exultant shout.

"Why, it's Pug!" he cried, pointing wildly to a brawny, shock-headed figure on the schooner's poop. "Pug, the slaver!"

"So it is!" Edmund laughed as, dropping her telescope with a clatter, Lucy clapped her hands, and around the decks shouts rose from the crew. "Hi! They've spied it! Just look at the panic!"

Sure enough, people were pointing madly at the Dawn Treader's topmast, where the flag of the Golden Lion fluttered idly. Somebody was pounding Pug on the back. "Perhaps he's choking himself!" Eustace suggested hopefully, for he had not forgotten that uncomfortable night in the hold of the slave ship. "I say! I think even _we_ could make a better job of bringing a ship about than they are, Ed!"

"The oars! They're clashing!"

"That's what comes of men trying to row backward, Your Majesties." There were tears of laughter in Drinian's dark eyes; at the point of the bow, Erlian was bent double, clutching his sides with mirth. "Aye, haul her 'round, you bunch o' lubbers! They'll have the sail in shreds if they keep luffing her up like that!"

"Shall we pursue, Cap'n?" Rhince was ready for a fight. Caspian chortled.

"What was it Reep said, off Terebinthia? _Board her, and hang every mother's son of 'em_, was that not his phrase?"

"And the only fitting thing to do with true pirates, Sire; but Pug and his associates are novices. Rynelf! We shall tack across their stern; see if you can't put a shot through the gentleman's window!"

"Gladly, Captain!"

The last instruction had been bawled down the hatch from the forecastle to the gun deck below, where Rynelf stood with two of his fellows. "This may be a touch noisy, Your Majesties," the Captain informed his companions cheerfully. "If you've delicate ears, I'd suggest you move aft, and quickly."

"And miss this? Not likely!" said Edmund.

"I agree!" said Lucy, though she stuck her fingers into her ears. The Star's Daughter followed her example, but not before she had wagged a mock-accusing finger at their friend.

"You, my Lord," she said, "are thoroughly enjoying this!"

"I don't deny it, Ma'am. Very well, Rynelf! As she bears, a shot through the sternport!"

"Aye, Captain!" The sailor's words were followed by a rumbling roar; a flash of fire blazed from below their group, then a cloud of grey, acrid smoke drifted back on the breeze to wreathe them. Ears ringing, people started to cough.

"A direct hit!" spluttered Argoz, wiping his streaming eyes. "Look, Your Majesties! The ball went directly through the stern porthole!"

"The gentleman shan't be sleeping in his own bunk tonight!" chortled Revelian.

"Well done, men!" called Drinian, to cheers. Every sailor who could be spared from duty had come to hang over the port side to throw insults at the panic-stricken pirates. "Resume our original course, Rhince! Lookouts, mark where the blackguard takes his refuge; Duke Bern might care to send out a party, when we give him this news of our old friend!"

"I did wonder what he'd do - Pug, I mean - with slave trading abolished," said Edmund, swaying as the Dawn Treader, heeling slightly, cruised back onto her original course to round the southern tip of the island. "He isn't the sort of fellow one would expect to find a _decent_ job, after all. Wonder if he'll find piracy as profitable?"

"The way he's handling his ship, King Edmund, I should think that unlikely," answered Drinian, loud enough for the sailors nearby to hear - and share - his scorn.

"They do say old dogs have difficulty learning new tricks, do they not?" mused Caspian, lolling back against the rail to smile down the length of his royal ship. "And really, did you ever meet a greater dog than Master Pug? We'll be in port before evening, Drinian, do you think?"

"Sure to be, Your Majesty; if you'll excuse me, I ought to relieve Pittencream of the helm; the Roads of Narrnowhaven are treacherous, and it wouldn't do for us to go aground in sight of your Imperial Highness' subjects! Sailmen, stand by! She'll take some smart handling, when we round the point and cross the first o' the Doorn Shoals!"


	9. Chapter 9 Hail the conquering heroes

Author's note: Thanks, reviewers, for your encouragement. This is part one of two set during the Dawn Treader's halt at the Lone Islands.

_HAIL THE CONQUERING HEROES COME_

Any hope he might have had that his return to known waters be accomplished without fuss, Caspian acknowledged gloomily, had been scuppered before the Dawn Treader's keel had skimmed the first and most treacherous of the sandbars known as the Doorn Shoals. First there had come, tinny across the waves, the sound of bells pealing; then the raucous blare of a trumpet. Before the royal galleon was straightened on her new course, running due north for the harbour at Narrowhaven, a welter of small boats, gaudy as so many gilded insects with their festival banners flying, were scudding from every cranny and cove of the jagged shore toward her.

"Hang it all!" he muttered between clenched teeth, even as his hand raised in a regal acknowledging wave. "Now I shall have to play the King again!"

"They're only curious to see a real, live Emperor," said Eustace, hanging over the taffrail to wave enthusiastically at the first holiday party to catch onto the great ship's wake.

"And you've said yourself, they're rare birds in these woods," added Edmund, stretching to catch one of the bright garlands of flowers being tossed at the ship's sides. "I say! These are Aslan Roses, aren't they, Lu?"

"Also called Emperor's Roses," his sister agreed, sniffing the sweet, heady scent with relish. "We had ropes of them decorating the Throne Room at Cair Paravel for our coronation, Ed, remember? How ever did they manage to find this many so quickly? You don't suffer from hay fever, Eustace, do you?"

"Not that I know of." The ship was surrounded by little boats now, and if the enthusiasm of the natives for their Emperor was cheering to Caspian, it was proving a disconcerting experience for the crew.

"Obstacles enough in these waters," grumbled Rhince, who had dashed to the main deck to assume personal charge of the sail-handling parties. "Squawkin' lubbers in small boats! Shouldn't be bloomin' let loose! Erlick! Stop luffin', you incompetent rogue, or I'll lay the lash to yer back with me own fair 'ands!"

Eustace sniggered. Lucy and Celesta directed frightened stares to the man who stood, impassive, at the helm. Drinian winked.

"He'll do no such thing, Your Majesties," he announced cheerfully, though his smile faded at the _clunk _of a rowing boat striking his galleon amidships. "Though if he chooses to flog the blast - _blessed_ fool who did _that_,_ I_ shan't be the man to stop him! Enthusiastic welcomes are well and good, but they ought to be confined to dry land - aye, and wide roads, too!"

"Doubtless you'll have the ship repainted whilst we're ashore; any slight damage shan't be visible for long," said Caspian, only half in jest. Drinian chortled.

"Certainly not! I'll have her emptied out and beached, her keel cleaned off. The painting can wait for Galma, being a matter more of _show_ than _substance_."

"Oh, no!" groaned Edmund. "We don't have to drag her ashore and scrape off the barnacles _again_, surely? We did that back on Ramandu's island!"

"More than five months of hard sailing ago," Caspian pointed out, though his face had fallen at the prospect. "And anyway, there are shipwrights enough at Narrowhaven to carry out the work; if not to supervise it, which I dare not hope our Captain will leave to another man."

"Your Majesty entrusted me with the management of your ship," said Drinian - _not for the first time,_ Lucy thought. "_And_ I promised the crew I should see them safely home. I'll not risk my honour (Lion bless me, I'm starting to sound like that confounded _Mouse _now!) on the careless workmanship of a Narrowhaven shipyard boy."

"Have it your way, my Lord," said Caspian, adding in a stage whisper to his friends: "What he means, of course, is he should sooner be sweating and swearing in the dry dock with his crew, than playing My Lord of Etinsmere at the castle!"

"Aye, there's that to it as well," agreed the gentleman good-naturedly. "Blast these boats - begging your pardon, Lucy - Ma'am. Stand ready, fore and aft! Rhince, reef and furl! We'll moor her under the castle's guns."

"Aye aye, Cap'n!" The shouts of compliance came from across the ship, and, as the sailmen scrambled to gather in and secure the great purple sail to the yards, two anchors were cast out, sploshing through placid waters to catch in the seabed and stop the Dawn Treader in her tracks. To three cheers from the crowds gathered on the quay, and the boom of the fortress's guns, the ship swayed idly, resting at last.

"Gun crews, return salute!" shouted Drinian. "It's all right, Ma'am," he added to the startled Celesta. "The guns are unshotted; they'll make not half the din they do in anger."

Sheepish, the Star's Daughter removed her fingers from her ears in time for the popping of the forward gun to prove Drinian's point. "I say!" said Edmund admiringly. "I didn't see the gun crews getting ready."

"Standing orders for entering any friendly port, Your Majesty; be ready to return any salute offered. You'll be wanting to go ashore immediately, Sire? That's the Duke, I think, three points off the forward bow."

"I wish you'd use _landsmen's_ directions, Drinian," sighed the King as five pairs of eyes scanned the wharf for the point implied.

"Wish _you'd_ recall the mariner's terms come more easily to me, at that. Rhince! Lower the boat, Their Majesties will go ashore."

"You ought to come with us, Drinian." It was less a suggestion than a Royal Command, and from his grimace, Drinian knew it as such. "Why! _We_ cannot instruct our host on what - precisely - is required for our ship and her company."

"Rhince, you have the ship." The courtier in him rising to conceal the sailor's irritation, Drinian followed his passengers down the poop ladder to the main deck, where, amidships, the boat had been dropped over the side, her crew assembling to race down and man the oars. "Grant the fellows their tot; and have a watch maintained; I'll send back instruction before dark, if I cannot return myself."

"You won't," muttered Caspian. "My Lords Argoz, Rhoop, Mavramorn and Revelian! Come, you must greet your old shipmate; he will be the more delighted to see us, discovering friends he thought long dead among us. Down you go, Lucy; we must be ship-shape, and have the senior officer aboard last over the side!"

They were cheered all the way to the low pier, and as Caspian stepped ashore men and women alike knelt in homage, pulling their wide-eyed infants down as the cries went up, bringing a tear to every Narnian eye (even Drinian's). "Long live King Caspian! Aslan preserve our Emperor!"

"My Lord Bern." Caspian extended his hand to the richly-robed gentleman at the fore of the crowd, as composed as if he had been expecting this reception (so different, Lucy thought, from that of Pug and his rabble on the journey east). "It gives us great pleasure to see your Lordship again."

"Your Majesty! To see _you_ is a greater joy," declared the first Duke of the Lone Islands fervently. "Your subjects have turned their thoughts east, in the Dawn Treader's wake, each day since you sailed from us last year."

"We have experienced many wonders, my Lord; but we shall talk of them later. For the present, allow us to present these gentlemen, your former shipmates."

Bern, raising his eyes for the first time beyond the master who had guided him from his knees, positively goggled. "Argoz?" he croaked. "And - by Aslan, Revelian, old friend! Mavramorn! And - and - _Rhoop_?"

"When I was worthy of a name, that I bore," murmured the shattered wreck stooped between Argoz and Mavramorn. "You were wise to remain here, Bern. The horrors I have seen…"

"My Lord Duke," cut in Caspian, who had heard those horrors recited so often even _he_ was losing patience with them. "Together with these three of our father's friends, at the island that marks the beginning of the end of the world, we came upon this lady, who is returned, at our plea, to rule beside us as Empress and Queen. My Lady Celesta; bid you welcome, to your own dominions."

"Lady." Bern knelt again, to kiss the hand extended, at a nudge from Lucy, toward him. "In the name of all the islanders, your faithful subjects, greeting! We and all we have are at your service."

"Your Lordship is most gracious." Now the test was come, and Celesta rose to pass it with all the effortless grace of her blood. Caspian looked fit to burst with pride. "My only wish is to show myself worthy of the great honours my Lord the King bestows on me."

"Small risk of your failing in that," murmured the King, bestowing upon her a look of such tenderness that the women in the throng sighed and swooned. "Tell us, my Lord Duke; what is the condition of these islands now? Has the strain of restoring our good Narnian government here been excessive? You _look_ to be bearing it well enough!"

"We have a stout people, Sire, who have risen royally to the proclamation of their ancient liberties under Your Majesty's protection," said Bern, conveniently overlooking the fact that Caspian's _protection_ had been absent for the last year. "Will Your Majesties - my Lords - come with me to the Castle? All that we can offer you and yours, we shall give you freely."

"Your shipwrights may repent of that generous offer, my Lord Duke," said Caspian with a grin. "I fear our Dawn Treader has undergone a year of trying labour in our service; her captain will, I dare swear, have a list of requirements to test your generous hospitality!"

"Our shipyards are at your disposal, my Lord Drinian," said Bern expansively. "Orders will be given that all their men are to consider themselves under your instruction, or that of your doughty deputy."

"But we must insist, my Lord, that you grant yourself at least some little respite from labour," added the King.

"I'll take some shore leave, Sire; and grant at least ten days together to each of the men, with your permission."

"Granted," agreed Caspian instantly. "Now, my Lord Duke, we have discovered a nest of villains lurking in the eastern bays of this island; send out your forces to settle Master Pug for once and all; but not today, this is a day for celebration! We would have you proclaim this day a public holiday for our good subjects. The Dawn Treader is in home waters at last; and come, you must have countless questions for your old comrades! To the castle, friends!"


	10. Chapter 10 A shipmate's farewell

_A SHIPMATE'S FAREWELL_

Shore leave passed Lucy in a whirl, for Caspian must be shown to every part of his dominions, and his Ancient predecessors must be with him. Even Eustace grumbled he should sooner be in dry dock below the castle, heaving on ropes and attacking encrustations hard as pebbles against the Dawn Treader's keel. During the first ten days at Narrowhaven they saw Drinian only after dark: grimy, exhausted, but cheerful as he reported rapid progress in the complicated business of a full refit.

"You must take some leisure yourself now, my Lord." When Caspian used his friend's land title, everyone knew there was no appeal. "My Lord Bern intends to carry us to his own estates on Avra tomorrow; as his old friend Tirian's son, he would welcome you no less than myself in the party. Rhince is entirely competent to manage half the crew in your absence."

"I should never have appointed him to his place, were he not." The double gates, studded with iron nails, of Narrowhaven Castle loomed ahead of them; below, beyond the town, torches flared fore, aft and at the masthead of the beached royal galleon, spiking out long shadows before the figures that moved stealthily about her decks. Drinian frowned over his shoulder, idly recalling how much simpler life had been as a mere seaman in another sovereign's navy. _Simpler, but less satisfying_, he reminded himself sternly. He squared his shoulders, stepped aside as Eustace pounded on the gates to demand admittance, and summoned a smile.

"Very well, Sire; since Duke Bern is so good as to extend his invitation to a rough mariner, I'll cross to Bernstead with your party. You'll allow that I send word to Rhince in the morning? He returns from his leave at midnight - or thereabout."

"You, soldier! Carry this message to Our galleon in Our name!" The regal command rang across a still courtyard, bringing the shaggy-haired brute that had first denied entry to his Emperor a year before scampering, polished helmet in hand. "That Master Rhince be instructed by Us, and by my Lord Drinian, Our Lord Admiral, to assume command of the work aboard the Dawn Treader during his Captain's deserved leave. Come to Our apartments when your errand is done."

"I say, Caspian," whispered Edmund, as the man bolted without stopping to fetch his cloak. "There wasn't any need for that high-and-mighty tone!"

"I must accustom myself to being instantly obeyed again," replied the King, his attempt at severity spoiled by the twinkle in his eye, caught by a flare of torchlight as the inner doors opened and they passed from fresh air to the musty dankness of the fortress. "It were best to start with a common soldier, before I must face Trumpkin and the Council! Ah, my Lord Bern! All's prepared for our journey tomorrow? Drinian has agreed, at our urging, to pass at least these few days in idleness."

"You'll soon be wishing me back aboard," retorted the gentleman, his determined effort to stifle a yawn failing miserably. "No, Sire, I'll not join you for supper: we have worked hard today; I'm for my cot. At what hour do we ride?"

"Six." Bern's reply met a chorus of groans, led by Eustace. "Two hours will see us at King Peter's Point, where my vessel will await us; an hour from there will deliver Your Majesties to my estate. And never fret for your ship, my Lord! Should your stout deputy be in need of you, a fast sloop can be at Bernstead in half of no time! Bid thee goodnight, if you will not join us for so little as a cup of wine. This way, Your Majesties; we have a fire in the former Governor's Parlour."

* * *

Bern's manor proved to be a modest two-storey structure of timber and stone built around a leafy courtyard, defended by a shallow moat unlikely (as Edmund pointed out) to hold off a force of Talking Mice. Rosy, well-dressed servants lined the yard to cheer Caspian's arrival, and a splendid spread of fresh bread, jam, scones and coffee awaited in the Hall. Nothing so informal had been offered on Doorn; and for the change, everyone was grateful. 

"This is become my refuge from the demands of my office," Bern told them, shaking the last crumb of crust from his beard. "Come, Rhoop, naught lurks in our shadows! My wife will see all shown to their chambers; we have fine views across to the other islands here. This afternoon, I shall show you all of our estates; and this evening, we've the finest musicians in all the islands engaged to play."

"We have no desire to burden Your Lordship with expense in our honour," Caspian began anxiously. Bern waved away the very notion.

"All Avra shares the expense, and the honour, of an Emperor's coming, Sire. Tomorrow, we shall take you to the highest point of the island; The Crag, where stands a ruined fortress…"

"It was perfectly serviceable when _we_ last visited," Edmund muttered. Lucy nudged him in the ribs.

"Nearly a thousand years ago; it might at least need redecorating by now!"

"Why, The Crag fell from useful service hundreds of years ago, Your Majesties; but it makes a picturesque spot for a picnic." Bern's wife stepped forward to guide her guests to their apartments. "Sara! Lina! Betha! Run ahead, have Their Majesties' doors stand open! The afternoons are short this time of year, Sire; you'll be glad of good fires and hot, mulled wines!"

As her captain and passengers dined at Bern's private table, and the torches that flared in her scones all burned low late that night, the Dawn Treader's sides crawled with dark shapes; that half of her crew returned from shore leave finishing a first day's work in place of the men now carousing in the taverns along the quay. Rhince's stentorian bellow called the slow and the slacking from their labours; men called out, laughed in raucous tones. The decks cleared. The dry dock where the galleon lay was plunged into silence.

Only the quickest eye might have detected the small wavering of thick shadow beneath the dragon's head prow. The ears of the dogs sniffing about the wharf for scrap of ham or a discarded bone might have caught the faintest vibration in the air as a human sighed. Something crackled; a pinprick of light flared from a crude tinderbox, breaking the narrow, intent face of Pittencream into sharp relief.

Cautious, one hand shielding the light so it cast directly into his path, the sailor crept from the protective blackness of the ship's shadow, his feet sliding on the sea-soaked timber rollers supporting her bulk. No lookout cried an alarm. One small, half-bald mutt yapped its warning when he came too close; somebody bawled a curse at the noise. But no head appeared. No dockyard idler or exhausted shipmate thrust a restraining hand. Turning away from the taverns where, last week, he had made his plans, Pittencream slipped away into the grimy streets and alleys of the town.

Nobody missed him until morning.

Rhince set up a hue and cry that had all Narrowhaven in a frenzy; but at day's end, he threw up his hands, confessed himself defeated, and commandeered a fast, ill-kept sloop for transportation to Bernstead, arriving after dark, when the household was sitting to dinner in a grand chamber with a high, vaulted ceiling painted with the constellations as seen from southern Narnia. The host, alarmed by the commotion in his courtyard, started up with his hand on his dagger, ready to challenge the disturber of an Emperor's feast; but at the sight of his deputy, a telltale vein at the side of his neck bulging in warning of repressed temper, Drinian shoved aside his chair, rose to his full, commanding height, and asked, in a tone that would slice through steel:

"What is it, Rhince?"

"The beggar's run, Cap'n." No help for it. Rhince squared his shoulders and set back his head, visibly braced for the hurricane. "We've 'ad the town out, Sir, but 'e's gone, an' that's flat."

"Run?" wondered Eustace and Celesta in unison.

"Deserted." He said it so levelly even Caspian gaped.

"Who?" he questioned, low-voiced. Rhince bristled.

"Who but, that half-rotted, scurvy, skinny-necked son of a whor – _washerwoman_ Pittencream, Your Majesty!"

"How does Rhince know what his mother did?" demanded Eustace, shrill in the silence. Bern snorted.

"More to the matter, what, my Lord Drinian, is to be done about our faithless shipmate?"

"There's not much we can do, if you ask me," put in Edmund sensibly. "We can't hang about Narrowhaven for ever, waiting for the Duke's guard to fetch him back in chains."

"I see no reason to delay our sailing, Your Majesties."

Everyone eyed him with suspicion. "You're taking this jolly calmly, Drinian," said Lucy.

"Were I surprised, Ma'am, I should be bawling and cussing as loud as captain ever did, but there's one rogue hen in every coop. Let Pittencream go, Rhince, with none of the rewards His Majesty promised those better-hearted men of the crew. I thought he might wait until we found land beyond your dominions, Sire, but that he should fail to reach Narnia is no surprise to me."

Rhince regarded his commander with unabashed awe. "Then I'm to call off the 'ounds, Cap'n?" he questioned, uncertainty warring with regret.

"Not necessarily, but we are not the sufferers, should they fail to turn up their quarry. He's no kin that we could trace in Narnia; and I shall _not_ be cajoled into considering him a loss to the ship! My Lord Bern, have you a corner to spare this unfortunate fellow tonight? The Boson can manage the ship a few hours more, and I should be an angry captain indeed, were any other to follow Master Pittencream's dishonourable example."

"Impossible!" exclaimed Caspian, to whom even the prospect of Pittencream's escape had been that an hour ago. "Yes, Rhince, come and dine with us, my Lady Duchess has provided ample for even another sailor's hearty appetite! We shall sail westward as intended, at the beginning of next week. Pittencream is a villain; we are well rid of him!"

"You'll hear no dispute from Rynelf to that, Your Majesty." Too relieved to be much puzzled by the composure of his commander's reaction, the big man subsided onto a bench pulled forward by Eustace. "Nor from me, neither! Aye, thank 'ee, Queen Lucy, that venison pie, with a cup o' wine, will go down a rare treat! Do we keep the town guard out, Sir?"

"Aye, so long as we remain ashore, it will do no harm for Master Pittencream to know the fear of capture and the lash." Drinian chuckled at his deputy's outraged cluck. "But if they find naught, I shan't be disappointed!"

"And should he appear after your departure, my Lord?" Bern questioned. Drinian shared a thoughtful look with the King.

"Most likely he'd appear in breach of Lone Islands law," said Caspian, slowly.

"Which is a matter for the justices of Narrowhaven," Drinian continued.

"And when _we_ are done with this villain?" demanded Bern.

"He's no loss to Narnia," declared Edmund.

"And if it is not my Lord High Admiral's will to have him flogged through the Fleet…"

"And keel-hauled for good measure," Lucy continued, on Caspian's behalf.

"He may safely be left to do whatsoever he may choose," the King concluded. Rhince growled massively.

"'E's a competent seaman, Sire," he admitted, reluctance making the words creak from his throat. "Could work 'is passage wherever 'e chose to go."

"Anywhere but Narnia, I bet," said Eustace happily. "I don't know what keel-hauling _is_, but it sounds deuced unpleasant."

"The miscreant being bound, cast over the starboard side and heaved on a chain by his shipmates to the port rail?" Drinian grimaced. "Unpleasant enough to turn an iron stomach; I've seen it done, with a scurvy mutineer. 'Tis the reason I make hanging the manner of execution for any like-minded scoundrel that should infest the Narnian fleet!"

"Mutiny?" Celesta's spoon clattered into her empty dish. "Unthinkable!"

"So was desertion," said Lucy seriously, "until just now."

"Not to Drinian." said Caspian, shaking his head until his curls stood on end. "You never cease to astonish me, old friend! You _knew_ Pittencream would run, and you said naught!"

"Your Majesty would have had a guard set at his door; how then would we be rid o' the blackguard?"

"Drinian!" Celesta shot out of her seat, long fingers pointing theatrically. "You _wanted_ him to desert!"

"Not _wanted_ as such, Ma'am, no; but a wise captain ought always to know the temper of every being aboard his ship. Pittencream's a fractious soul; and when the rest of us speak of the World's End, what was he to do? Confess he never saw it? His pride would never permit. Let him go elsewhere and astonish the gullible with his tales. We'll hear tell of him, one day. He is not the man to lie low for ever."

"More's the pity," muttered Rhince, into his goblet. Caspian raised his cup.

"We all," he said, content to wink at an act of treason in this instance and this one only, "can drink to that!"


	11. Chapter 11 Acquaintances renewed

Author's Note: The next two chapters were originally one, but I've split them for ease of reading. Count Vissarin and his minions have their origins in the _mignons_ of Henri III of France, who sometimes attended court balls in female dress; and Piers Gaveston, favourite of Edward II of England, whose enormous influence over the King led directly to his murder.

_RENEWING ACQUAINTANCES_

"Your Majesty is truly welcomed to these islands; indeed, we are even more delighted than we are relieved to see Your Highness returned from the dreadful seas beyond the Lone Islands!"

"I can assure you, my Lord Vissarin, those _distant seas_ contain no more terrors than do these more familiar!" cried Caspian (conveniently forgetting, Edmund thought, sea monsters, islands where nightmares turn real, exploding islands and the cursed land of Deathwater) as he wrung the small, fragranced hand presented by the overlord of the Confederation of the Seven Isles. "And from the most distant of the seas, I bring a Queen for Narnia; my Lady Celesta, who has done the highest honour to Us and Ours in leaving her own land for Our sake."

"Honoured Lady!" When the Count turned, so did his young and handsome attendants, all attired in red and gold, and dripping with jewels like their master. "Accept of these islands the warmest felicitations! Sire, as a man not long married myself, I dare pledge on my possession of this estate your gentle lady will prove as great a blessing as is Her Most Serene Highness to me!"

Some of the pretty young men sniggered, but Count Vissarin of Brenn merely tutted at their impertinence. "Oh, I _see_!" whispered Eustace to his cousins. _"Not quite the marrying kind_, as your mother would say!"

"Our congratulations to you, my Lord Vissarin." Good manners ensured Caspian _said _the right thing, even if he wasn't thinking it. "The matter was - _no pressing concern_, I believe you remarked on our last enjoying of your very generous hospitality."

"Aslan, no!" The Count was, Edmund suspected, no more than twenty-five, an age at which most princes and ruling counts thought it wise to secure their succession. "I have a perfectly enchanting nephew - Robrin, dearest, present yourself to His Majesty! - with whom I mean to entrust my succession, but… the surest alliances between states are those bound by matrimony, don't you think? You must have made a very _favourable_ agreement with my Lady Celesta's guardian…"

"Nothing of the kind!" exclaimed Lucy indignantly. Caspian coughed.

"My Lord Count, permit that I present Queen Lucy, named the Valiant, and King Edmund, her brother, the Just, of ancient time," he cried, embarrassment raising his tone almost as high as his host's trilling. The minions, who had been staring (rather rudely) were suddenly all awed attention.

"Gracious Majesties, the honour to our island is redoubled! My wife will be most _particularly_ delighted - we so seldom have company of _distinction_, as she calls it, and poor dear, we do seem _rustic_ to her! Norlan! Be a pet and run to the Castle, inform Her Serenity who comes! Your Majesty simply _must_ tell us everything about your voyage! Gracious! Grooms! More horses, fine ones for the ladies, at once! My wife will be _especially_ delighted to see _you, _Sire, and my Lord Drinian! I'll wager my coronet _and_ all Norlan's diamonds, _she_ is the _last_ person you'd ever imagine finding _here_!"

* * *

"Aren't you in the least bit _curious_, Drinian?" Caspian demanded. His friend shrugged.

"Not half so curious as that fluttering fool would wish, if Your Majesty will pardon the bluntness."

"My Majesty expects naught less of you!" Caspian clouted him heartily on the shoulder. "Still, if _you_ are not avid for a glimpse of this unfortunate Countess_, I _am!"

The Narnians had been escorted into a tapestried chamber on the ground floor of Brenn Castle, plied with spiced wine and biscuits (which Eustace spat out, finding them to be ninety-nine percent sugar), there to await formal reception by the Count and Countess in their Pillared Hall above. "So am I!" said Lucy, with a shudder. "Imagine being married to _that_ creepy little fellow! Ugh!"

"I imagine she has a tedious time of it, with his _escort_ for ever tripping at her heels," the King agreed seriously. "Did you see Master Norlan's nails? Better polished than any Narnian lady's!"

"And the _perfume_!" agreed Edmund. "I think they must_ bathe_ in it!"

"Rosewater and lavender. Very good for the complexion, according to the one with all the rouge; I forget his name." It was difficult to judge whether there was more of disgust or bemusement in Drinian's remark. Celesta smiled.

"I must try it, my Lord; and I wonder what they use for a _cream_. Did you not notice, they have the softest, whitest _hands_ imaginable?"

"Never hauled on a rope or fought a wet sail in their lives, Ma'am." Drinian considered his own large, work-and-weather-toughened palms with approval. Lucy chortled.

"Goodness, they'd have the hysterics at the very thought! They're proper lapdogs; put them in front of a nice fire, feed them tidbits and pet them. They're decorative, but I don't suppose they _do_ very much."

"Your Majesty does them a disservice!" Caspian shook his head. "Those primped _lasses_ are the inner council of Brenn. I'll wager Vissarin _had_ to play the man and take a wife, to quell murmurings of rebellion amongst the lords of the other six islands!"

"Brenn's supremacy _is_ traditional in the Confederation," Edmund remembered.

"But not guaranteed. Ah, you are come to escort us to Their Eminences, sir? Lead the way! I assume the people are delighted to have a Countess, eh?"

The uniformed usher, his throat foaming with a lace collar that no self-respecting Narnian would consider wearing, bowed his head, lips pursed and eyes blank. "Evidently not, then," whispered Edmund. "Golly! I wonder who she was before?"

"His Most Serene and Imperial Majesty Caspian, King of Narnia, Lord of Cair Paravel, and Emperor of the Lone Islands, with companions." The announcement boomed off the hall's decorative columns, all warm red marble shot with silver.

"Cousin." The woman who rose from the Consort's Chair was certainly prettier than the lounging assortment of young men who clustered behind the grander seat above her where the Count perched, feet dangling: though less extravagant in her robe of tawny with emerald undergown. "Gladly do I bid you, welcome to the Court of Redhaven."

"Anelia? Good Cousin, this is a wonder indeed!" Caspian broke into an astonished grin. "My Lord Vissarin, you are a fortunate man indeed to have won the hand of the Daughter of Archenland!"

"Did I not declare, you'd never imagine seeing _her_ enthroned here?" Vissarin clapped his fat little hands. "King Lune's daughter! None of _our_ House has ever made such a match before!"

"Fair Cousin, allow that I present these, my dearest companions." It was all Caspian could do to remember etiquette as he faced the daughter of his mother's brother. "First, my betrothed bride Celesta, Lady of the Eastern Sea."

"Lady." _Even Susan wouldn't be noticed in a room containing those two,_ Lucy thought, not without a twinge of resentment. Celesta's golden beauty was matched in every degree by the onyx radiance of the Countess, whose ivory skin needed no floral water or cream to retain its perfection. "You are fortunate in winning the hand of my excellent cousin. Give me leave to wish you - as kin - happiness and prosperity."

Edmund and Eustace, gaping like stunned fish, were presented; Lucy found herself being looked over with an imperious black gaze that raised very hackle she possessed (and a few more she hadn't known about). Only when the Princess of Archenland turned her cool stare to the last member of the party did the chill edge melt off her perfection.

"My Lord Drinian," she said, lingering over his name like one relishing its taste. "It has been some years since I had this pleasure."

"The pleasure is mine, Highness." He bent from the waist, gently lifting the long hand she offered to his lips. "My Lord Vissarin declared we would be startled in meeting his Countess; I did not anticipate the surprise might be so _pleasant _as this."

"You have lost none of your charm, my Lord of Etinsmere." She made no effort to retrieve her hand; he seemed to have forgotten about releasing it as they smiled at each other. "We must talk, during your time here. Much has passed, since last we had that opportunity."

"Splendid, I _knew_ you would be pleased to meet again! Your Majesty, do you not think the air of Redhaven agrees with your cousin? Is she not more beautiful _here_ than she ever was at Anvard?"

"I never had the honour of attending my uncle's court in Archenland, Eminence. My friend, however, passed much of his boyhood in that kingdom, exiled from Narnia during the time of the usurper, Miraz."

"Well, then! My Lord Drinian, what say you?"

"Why, that the Princess Anelia was the chief ornament of her father's court, as the Countess of Brenn is of her husband's," Drinian parried with a grin. The lady's low, smoky laughter rang out, twining itself through the titters of her husband's courtiers.

"A diplomat's answer, my Lord! Come, you will sit with us, dear guests, and talk of the Eastern Seas. Are there truly monsters lurking before the fires at the Edge of the World? No? How disappointing, it sounded so _exciting_ in the stories! Husband, we shall have a ball - I insist upon it, summon the Lords of the Isles. Indulge me, Sire; seven small islands far from _anywhere _seldom enjoy the _civilising_ influences of an _outside_ society!"

* * *

"I don't like her any more than I do him," said Eustace decidedly. "Stuck-up!"

"I wonder very much she ever agreed to such a match," Caspian mused, though not before peering through the keyhole of the pretty parlour that connected with all the rooms in the Narnians' suite. "I know it _sounds_ rude, Eustace, but the Seven Isles _are_ somewhat - _rustic_ in comparison with the courts of the Northern Kingdoms. And Anelia, as I understand, was much spoiled by my uncle's favour."

"Did precisely as she pleased, Your Majesty." Drinian's lips twitched. "I'll confess, 'twas more shock than surprise I felt on seeing her here; I never believed she would leave a court where, in the absence of an anointed Queen, she effectively reigned."

"I can see she might think this a come-down, but I agree with Scrubb. P'raps she keeps her nose so high in the air to avoid the reek of these ghastly _perfumes_."

"Honestly, Ed, you're as bad as he is!" said Lucy, quite automatically.

"Perhaps - King Lune's health had not been strong for some years. If Corin - my cousin, Anelia's brother, you know - were to marry and breed…"

"No place for a stout-hearted Princess?" suggested Celesta.

"Anelia would not willingly walk a pace behind any other lady."

"True!" The children goggled at him, and the Star's Daughter observing quietly from a corner chair, almost smiled. "But to marry the ladylike count of a far-distant island… _that_ I should never have imagined of her."

"You and she seemed friendly." It was unkingly to pout, but perhaps it could be blamed on the flower scents which pervaded the palace, got into one's nostrils and caught in the very fibres of one's clothes. Caspian pouted.

"I was marched to Anvard regularly, Sire, over ten years when the kindness of King Lune and his people was my staff. Being of an age with Her Highness and Prince Corin, I was more often in their society than our elders'."

"Anelia ought to have been the prince," Caspian confided, forgetting his pique that a mere courtier of Narnia had been more smilingly received by his kinswoman than he had himself. "She's twice the wit of Corin; aye, and three times the stomach! You see! Drinian does not dispute it!"

"Never wise to dispute with one's sovereign, Sire: especially when, demonstrably, he's right." Despite being a betrothed man, the King could be remarkably _dense_, to use Queen Lucy's word, on occasion. Usually frustrated, Drinian was willing to be grateful for the fact now "If you'll excuse me, I'll return to the ship after supper; there's work to be done, and Rhince has not - yet - had instruction from me."

"You'll sleep afloat, I dare say, then." Caspian grimaced. "Oh, very _well_! I cannot condemn a man for escaping this perniciously _frilled_ place as much as he can; nor for evading that _talk_ with my cousin! Once she has one cornered, she seldom lets one go!"

Though she seldom left the Narnians in peace, Lucy soon found herself liking their hostess more than she had expected, though she could not see her without puzzling. Though she plainly preferred the company of men - and men from beyond the Seven Isles, at that - she was generous to the ladies of the Narnian party, and on the afternoon of the grand ball which would be their farewell to Redhaven, she came with two burly servants carrying a chest of extravagant jewels for Lucy and Celesta to choose from.

"A Countess cannot adorn herself, but a Queen, and a lady soon to be a Queen, must _never_ wear fewer diamonds than the gentlemen," she announced, and for a moment Lucy ached for what she must endure with her husband in thrall to his pretty friends. "You shall have no such difficulty with my cousin, Celesta, but remember, a ruler must never have _favourites_, unless they be _men_ of my Lord Drinian's stamp. A wife has no cause to dread the presence of such a man at her husband's elbow."

"Caspian would never permit a wife to step between his friend and himself." The Star's Daughter fingered a string of egg-sized emeralds. "You have these beautiful things, Anelia, and yet, you wear a single gold chain and no rings!"

"Oh, these are hardly _mine_!" The laugh, low and appealing, was twisted with anger. "No, they are trinkets Vissarin hands to his _pets_; Robrin requested that you be given the choice of them for the ball as a mark of our especial admiration for Narnia. Robrin is not like his uncle - you'll have noted the similarity in age? My husband had a sister twenty years older than himself, by the first of his father's six marriages. When Robrin inherits Brenn…."

"Which he may not do, if you have a son," said Celesta innocently. Anelia squealed.

"My dear! _That _will _never _happen! But now - enough of my troubles, tell me more of your voyage! I never saw such a vessel as your Dawn Treader; Caspian and Drinian ought to be proud of her."


	12. Chapter 12 The terrors of society

_THE TERRORS OF SOCIETY_

The ball, despite the crush of curious islanders in their gaudy finery avid for a glimpse of the Narnian King, proved all the Countess had said of the tedium of Brenn-ish society. Lucy was thankful for the company of her friends and determinedly stayed with them at the Count's dais, except when forced by politeness to accept the unblemished soft hand of a councillor in the dance. The Count himself watched his wife whirl with first one visitor then the next, shunning _his _friends for those she considered to be _hers_.

"Enough of these stately _pacings_!" she cried at last, tossing back the loose mane of her onyx hair, sparkling with tiny diamonds on fine gold chains. "Husband, what nonsense have you told these scratchers and scrapers you call the _court orchestra_? Cousin: does not Your Majesty ache for the freedom of a jig?"

Caspian wagged a finger. "Your Highness must excuse me; I am a sedate dancer, not a madcap!"

"Come, Vissarin, I must have a jig. You know I detest these slow, simpering dances. I should call for Robrin, but he _cannot_ take a step without crushing his partner's toes!"

"My Lord Drinian has been known to represent Us in this arena with the same success he shows in matters of policy," Caspian suggested. Count Vissarin clapped his hands.

"There! If you, my Lord, are agreeable…"

"Gladly, Sir, if Her Serene Highness will allow it."

Anelia was halfway to the floor before the words were out of his mouth, her hand extended and a decidedly pleased smile on the face that turned back over a shoulder to him. "The pleasure will be mine; I recall, my Lord, that you dance remarkable well, for a _tar_."

"Your Highness may _also_ recall the strictures I endured from my kind aunt on the subject." They looked well together, Caspian noted idly, moving with the fluid ease of familiarity. As Vissarin called for a merry tune from his musicians, and a dozen other couples skipped to the floor, he watched them; his best friend and his cousin, hardly known and less trusted, sharing a smile that was one part flirtation, one part mischief, and a third part of something on which he had no desire to speculate.

Anelia was beautiful. She was Royal. Her name had been raised in his council chamber when first Cornelius and Trufflehunter had begun to fret about getting an heir, by which they meant finding a bride for their king. And then, no less suddenly, it had slipped from their calculations.

He had not liked the idea. His mother's niece! A cousin! A _girl_!

Well, he excused himself, he _had_ been barely sixteen; and he had never come near a lady younger than Nurse in his life.

They danced exceptionally well; she leapt higher than most of the men, her head thrown back, hands outstretched. He moved with a lithe, powerful grace worlds away from the frantic hopping of his fellows as the pace picked up and the feet began to fly. And when he lifted his partner and twirled around, the Countess was hoisted high above any other person in the room.

"Oh, good show, Drinian!" exclaimed Edmund enthusiastically. "Jolly good show!"

"Oh do be _quiet_, Ed!" cried Lucy, clapping to the music. "Goodness! The other people had better move back, her feet are going to hit somebody's head any moment!"

Somehow, Anelia's silk-slippered toes managed to avoid the nearest dancers before coming down, dainty as a doll's, to the floor. Her eyes shining, she caught the hands of her partner and spun the length of the ballroom with him. Edmund wasn't surprised to see the couples they passed not merely moving aside, but stopping to admire the skills acquired by two children of the Archenlandish court.

"My wife considers us shockingly _backward_ in these more _refined_ arts," Vissarin informed his guests, sounding (Lucy thought) quite complacent. "And it must be conceded, she lacks for partners here with the skill of your shipmate."

The music rose to a flourishing finale, the dancers spinning and leaping to a stop before the dais. Head thrown back, hair flying, the Countess let fall a shriek of real, honest laughter.

People gaped. "I dare say they've never seen her actually _happy_ before," whispered Lucy. "She must have a ghastly life!"

"Indeed." Caspian was busy watching his cousin's animated face, and the admission slipped past his defences. "She was once considered - by certain of the Council - as a possible consort for _me_, you know."

"Fancy marrying your own cousin!" exclaimed Edmund.

"Horrid!" said Lucy and Eustace together.

"It _is_ allowed, though, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes; Caspian the Conqueror wed his cousin, and his son, Caspian the Confused, married _his_ heir to a cousin as well. Also, the alliance with Archenland _is_ of great value (as Cornelius often tells me) to Narnia."

"But…" Celesta hinted, almost too serene with the subject for his liking. Caspian shrugged.

"I've not the remotest idea," he half fibbed. "Perhaps that I was barely sixteen, and two years my cousin's junior, was considered an impediment: to say naught of her mixed Archenlandish and Telmarine blood."

"Hardly likely!" Edmund scoffed. "I say! That was jolly good dancing, you two!"

They both had the good grace to appear at least a _little_ breathless from exertion, the lady summoning a liveried servant with drinks and handing one to her companion, her fingers just brushing his. "We danced often, King Edmund, when my Lord Drinian could be persuaded to quit the sea for the court during his service with our fleet. The Lady of Westerwood never forgot her nephew was born to the palace as much as the ocean."

"Aunt Katharina would have seen me a professional courtier." He could imagine few worse fates (unless being trapped for ever at Redhaven). Caspian chuckled.

"There's more to such a profession than elegant dancing, and her nephew has too frank a manner to ever be its master! Lion Alive, my dear Count, that's no insult to the most dependably honest friend a sovereign ever had. Drinian's inability to murmur a bland answer is invaluable to me - and to Narnia!"

"Still, you have not forgot all your courtly skills at sea, my Lord," Anelia murmured.

"My aunt once told me, Madam, that a skill truly learned is never entirely forgot."

"Ugh!" muttered Lucy. "She's flirting with him!"

"Must say, Lu, I thought _he_ was flirting with _her_," Edmund corrected.

"What _is_ flirting?" enquired Celesta helplessly as the Countess patted Drinian's cheek.

"The Lady of Westerwood was wise," she said.

"Aye." Again they smiled at each other, and it seemed to Caspian their company faded away.

"Lion bless me!" he murmured. "What a fool I was!"

"Why, Caspian, dear?" asked Lucy, looking concerned.

"Hm? Oh, nothing, Lucy, nothing at all." And then, more quietly, so she should not hear again: "I wonder. I really _do_ wonder."

* * *

"Golly, I'm _melting_!"

"I see an open doorway beyond this crowd, Queen Lucy." Caspian proffered his hand. "What say you we seek to slide through it?"

"Yes, please!" the girl replied fervently, slapping her palm against his. With a smile, the King ducked his head and plunged into the throng, firing apologies left and right as startled citizens were jolted out of his path. "Aslan, a breeze!" she heard him gasp, and a moment later a gust of delicious air struck her glowing face.

"Ssshhh!" Lucy had spied it the instant she looked up; on the wall opposite, beyond a large fountain playing merrily, water spouting from the mouths of four friendly-looking dragons, two large shadows were swaying, cast up by the moonlight. Caspian stopped dead.

"Oh," he whispered. "I rather think we're interrupting."

Lifting their feet high, as if they expected their footfalls on the cobbles to be heard, they started to ease back into the doorway. The owner of one of the shadows - slim, willowy, plainly female - whimpered.

Her companion - taller, broad about the shoulders, unquestionably a man - sighed. "Truly, Anelia, you knew my answer before the words were spoken."

Caspian and Lucy were stopped as completely as if the White Witch of old had turned them to stone. Only the King's lips moved, to form the speaker's name. _Drinian_.

"Am I so much less appealing now?" The Countess of Brenn was crying: or rather, Lucy thought unsympathetically, she wanted her companion to believe she was. She watched his arm lift in silhouette, resting over the trembling shoulders of the lady. He chuckled.

And, though she didn't understand why, she shivered, feeling the sound run through her.

"Never that! But you are wed, I'm betrothed: and a Lord of Etinsmere, a Lord Admiral of Narnia, is not the same as a common seaman of King Lune's fleet."

"Wed? I am less to Vissarin than the runt of his Duckhound's newest litter! Have you never yearned to be _held_, Drinian?"

"Aye." There was a wistfulness in his friend's tone Caspian had never heard before. "Still, longings cannot change realities. You _are_ Countess of Brenn; with our honours come burdens. We choose to bear them."

"How you're changed, my rash, heedless sailor!"

"Perhaps one must change, with changed duties." His shadow stooped. Caspian tensed, relaxing when the shadow play on the wall showed Drinian's mouth to have brushed nothing more intimate than the lady's brow. "I do feel for your troubles, Anelia."

"But I chose to endure them?" They watched the movement of her hand, rising toward his face; for an instant, Lucy thought she might be intending to slap him. _Goodness,_ she thought_, I ought not to have the faintest idea of what they're talking about. Mother would send me to bed without supper!_

"I wed to content my father, Drinian, that he might see me _honourably settled_ before he dies; and he cannot see the year's end. As to my bridegroom… my _past intrigues_ stand as a barrier to better."

"For which I'm in part to blame." Drinian tightened the arm around her shoulders. The lady laughed.

"My dear, bold Captain, was I not a reckless Princess, responsible for my own conduct?" Lucy gathered that they had moved apart, for a moment later the Countess's silhouette swayed, merging with his. "You were not the first nor last with whom I was so _connected_."

"But was I not among the best?"

Her laughter pealed, shaking Caspian from his stricken state. "You speak as one who needs no answering!" she purred, and if it were possible for two people to stand closer, the King of Narnia trusted he would never see it. "I hope this betrothed, for whom you scorn my offer, is worthy of you."

"The question, in truth, is whether I can ever be deserving of Daniela." The way he said her name tugged Lucy's heart.

"When do you sail?" She had accepted it now, though with regret plain in her voice. The pleasure in his answer was no less apparent.

"On the spring tide, tomorrow morning. The King will understand if our going is too early for your attending."

"Have you not lectured me on _duty_?" She rounded the fountain, her eyes getting wide at the sight of the two still, silent figures. "Cousin. Queen Lucy. I must return to the ballroom."

She flitted beyond them before either could speak to stop her. Drinian took one look at their shocked faces and sighed.

"You have been there some time, Sire," he stated. Caspian managed to nod.

"We didn't mean to eavesdrop," Lucy began, unsure whether she felt more embarrassed for herself or for him. "We came out for some air, and - well…"

"I had the same idea myself; there was no intent on my part, Your Majesties. I've been _trying _to avoid the noble lady since she first hinted at a desire to _talk_."

"Plain enough the advances were hers." His friend looked cautiously relived, and Caspian was astonished to feel laughter bubbling in his throat. "Lion Alive, man! A boggy patch you were in, when we stumbled out! Our delightful hostess eager to - _ahem!_ - renew old acquaintances, if I might put it so…"

"Better that way than any other, in the company of a lady." Drinian grinned broadly. Lucy giggled.

"Don't let me get in the way of a man-to-man chat," she said, halfway to the door before they could react. "And don't look so _guilty, _Captain! Seems to me you've behaved perfectly honourably - tonight, at least!"

The two Narnians stared after her, faintly embarrassed in each other's company as neither recalled being before. "I believe I understand now," said the King, slowly, "why Cornelius suddenly ceased to consider my Archenlandish cousin as a consort of Narnia."

"He hinted he was conscious of - certain rumours," admitted Drinian. Caspian gave him a hearty slap on the back.

"Aslan bless you, man!" he exclaimed. "Do you know what a state of terror I was cast into, at the very _prospect_ of being affianced to her? If the _connection_ of one of Our most senior noblemen with the Princess preserved _me_ from a like happening - and brought some amusement to your shore leaves, of course - 'tis naught to be regretful of! Come, we'd best show ourselves to the good folk of Brenn before the festival ends. Do we sail _particularly_ early tomorrow? Good! We'll make our legitimate excuses and return to the Dawn Treader; I dare say my fair cousin will be as glad as you to be spared a more _private_ leave-taking! Edmund! Eustace! Gather yourselves, boys, we must be away! No, my Lord Count, I must insist; my Captain informs me the best tide for so great a ship as ours comes an hour after dawn; we dare not miss it, lest the men mutiny at delay in returning to Narnia!"


	13. Chapter 13 The island of nightmares

Author's Notes: Thanks to Mandi96 who remarked in a review of Vignettes from a Voyage that Archenland is landlocked. My memory's a bit hazy, but I'm pretty sure her southern border is the Winding Arrow River, which would give her access to the sea and a solid reason for maintaining a small fleet of (maybe not very effective) ships.

Also, there's a line in here from the 1989-ish BBC adaptation; it stuck in my head as a convincing character point. Maybe because VDT is my favourite of the Chronicles, that was my pick of the Beeb's adaptations, too.

_THE ISLAND OF NIGHTMARES_

"Land-ho!"

The hail, Lucy realised, had become routine. On the long journey east, each cry from the ship's top meant novelty, excitement and (quite possibly) danger. Even the first few lands on the voyage home had the diversion of being barely known. Now, back in familiar waters, it no longer stirred the blood. "Terebinthia," she stated, quite matter-of-fact.

"Aye." Something in Drinian's terse reply made her turn, alarmed. His hands clenched and his jaw tight, the Dawn Treader's captain glared in the direction of the aforenamed island as if it contained something nasty.

"Are you all right, Captain?" she asked.

"Fine, Ma'am. Rhince! We'll make good use of our halt here to replace the rigging, I think; organise the necessary parties."

"Aye aye, Cap'n!"

"That'll be quite a job," said Edmund, considering the vast lengths of knotted and tarred ropes that climbed in intricate patterns up the sides of the mast.

"It will, King Edmund, but a necessary one." The subject was therefore closed. Drinian strode toward the poop ladder, resentment and hostility in every line of him. The children could only gape.

"Well!" whistled Eustace. "What's bitten _him_?"

"Goodness only knows." She had seen him impatient; sometimes even angry, but never had Lucy seen their friend so implacable, so _cold_. She didn't like it.

His bristling displeasure only seemed to deepen as the island grew until it consumed the horizon: by the time he stood at the tiller, expertly guiding his great ship between the smaller, untidy craft littering the overcrowded harbour of Port Terebinthia, Drinian was positively glowering at any unfortunate whose duties happened to take him across the captain's line of vision. He brought the galleon to rest against a low pier with no more than a gentle bump, remaining as still as if turned to stone while Caspian gathered his accustomed party and processed down the poop ladder toward the gangplank, already thrown down to the land. "Isn't…" Edmund hinted. Caspian, never diverting his gaze from the cluster of stout, over-jewelled men assembled at the landward end of the walkway, shook his head.

"Later," he said, from the side of his mouth. "King Tonlock, we are happy to see you."

"Your Majesty! Accept of me the warmest congratulations of this island and her peoples on your triumphal return to her waters!"

Lucy wished very much she could have stayed on deck with Drinian. She didn't know what it was about this inoffensive, eager little man; but she disliked King Tonlock the moment he opened his weak, big-lipped mouth.

"Your Grace is most kind." Swiftly, Caspian passed through the round of introductions: to Celesta and the long-lost Lords, to Edmund, Eustace, and Lucy herself, who (to her disgust) had her hand slobbered on in the name of courtesy.

"I trust we shall have the great honour of entertaining Your Majesties for several days?" suggested Tonlock, before a very clear nudge in the back reminded him of the formalities he was supposed to offer. "I must present the chief advisers of my government; Master Wenlock and Master Torlow, commissioners, respectively, of trade and transport, among other burdens too great to elaborate. Anything we might offer to your ship's company…"

"Thank you, we shall convey your generous offers to our captain." Caspian pinched Eustace hard on the hand when the boy opened his mouth, ready to interrupt with a well-meaning call to the poop. "But - we must regret that our residence in your dominions be short. After the better part of sixteen months, we all, from ourself to the most raw of our crew, are eager only to see Narnia again."

"Quite natural, Sire." Wenlock was a giant of a man, with lank, greying hair that fell over a scarred forehead. "We have a feast laid ready at the Mansion for Your Majesties, if you would care to partake of it in our company?"

"He makes it sound like a threat!" muttered Edmund. As Torlow pushed a path through the throngs of quayside idlers, he cast a last, longing look back at the Dawn Treader. "But it can't be - can it?"

* * *

"You see that great fortress on the bluff above us, Your Majesties? That's Black Jack's Tower." Even the shrill voices of the hawkers on the quay were finally silenced. The moon shone down on a peaceful harbour as the children, Caspian and Celesta lolled around the main deck where Drinian perched on a great coil of strong rope brought aboard during the afternoon in preparation for the complete re-rigging of the ship he had in mind. Tails of it, already knotted and spliced, lay about the decks at their feet. "Named for a damnable pirate, if you'll pardon the expression, and guarded by his kind to this day. Oh, you'll see none of their ships; they'll have received fair warning of our approach, and their puppet King dare not _offend_ the King o' Narnia by flaunting his allies' banners. But what is the chief support to the economy of this benighted island? What it's been for hundreds o' years - pirate loot!"

"Wenlock and Torlow are pirates." It wasn't a question. The scars both bore; the gold rings and bracelets that looked so odd on their brawny, tattooed arms. Edmund was amazed he hadn't realised it sooner. "Tonlock's more or less their tool."

"I thought he seemed spineless," said Eustace.

"Afraid; and he has good reason to be. His predecessor – a cousin - was murdered by their _professional acquaintanc_e when he sought to remove them from his dominions. Tonlock knows well enough, a wrong step and his throat will be slit in its turn."

"Tonlock has ruled - under the watchful instruction of his _sponsors -_ these twenty years," said Caspian, biting his lip as he regarded his friend's taut features. "And is acknowledged, by every ruler in the world, as lawful master of this island. We dare not offend him, or his more formidable friends. Drinian, if I could avoid asking it of you…"

"Then don't ask!" The taller man shot up from his slouch, hands clasped tight behind his back. "Command it of me as my master, but for the Lion's sake, never ask it of me as my friend!"

"I cannot _command_," wailed the King, his voice rising in distress as Drinian began to pace, long strides devouring the deck at its widest point. "We all are invited to this feast in our honour, and were _you_ to be absent, the affront would be severe."

"Command it; _insist_ I do my duty, for in Aslan's name, I can't do as you wish any other way!" The spring that had been pulling taut inside him since this benighted island first loomed into sight snapped free. The words came fast, tumbling over each other, and Drinian, that most disciplined of men, had not the strength to stop them.

"Can you ask me to exchange bows with the self-same villain that led the torturers when first I came to this accursed place? Oh, I knew Master Torlow's face, even through a glass and at distance, though he'll not recall mine: I was but fifteen, one of hundreds crowded into the citadel they name for their thrice-damned predecessor! He and his rogues were most often drunk, and I was wiser than to confess my true name to a murderous sadist!

"As to Wenlock, I never saw him, but I know the name well enough; he was the _admiral_, if you please, of the _Terebinthian fleet_ - a fine name for a rabble o' criminals, defenders of a criminal government! Never _ask _that I sup with the men who slaughtered my shipmates, King Caspian, 'tis too much to require of anyone in friendship's name!"

"By Aslan!" The King was ghastly white; livid in the moonlight. Drinian, ferocious energy drained, slumped miserably against the stout trunk of the mainmast, holding his dark head as though it ached. "I - we must leave tonight - directly! I cannot - not for anything - either ask _or_ command such a torture of any man, least of all the best!"

"We've half the rigging down, Caspian." He was too tired to fight; this challenge, like all the others the great voyage had cast his way, Drinian would conquer. "We are in no position to flee; and I'll not slink away like an escaped slave! When is the banquet?"

"Tomorrow night." It was true, the ship was incapable of sailing, and Caspian knew better than to believe the coward's option would appeal to his friend any more than it did to himself. "If you were to be indisposed…"

"None would credit it, and I'll not run away."

"Will somebody please explain to us what this is all about?" demanded Eustace plaintively, thus recalling the two Narnians to their frightened audience. Drinian expelled a gusty sigh.

"You know that during my exile from Narnia, I took service in the Royal Fleet of Archenland, the admiral of which my late father's sister had married," he said, lifting his eyes as if he hoped to find the strength for his tale in the stars. "For more than two years, that fleet was embroiled in a vicious conflict with the supposed Navy of Terebinthia - otherwise known as a rabble of pirate ships, united only to protect the base granted them by successive feeble-minded, greedy tyrants…"

"By the Kings of Terebinthia," put in Caspian gently, one ruler feeling compelled to offer the same honour to another (however unworthy). Drinian spiked him with a glare.

"One of their number seized King Lune's own ship; slaughtered his crew and sold the loot aboard openly at market here. King Tonlock ignored appeals for amendment, insofar as it could be made; and though our forces were unequal to our own defence in time of peace, war was declared inside a fortnight.

"The pirates banded, as they have ever done when their dominion was under threat, in support of their puppet. For the first year, only three ships - one of them, the frigate Tiger, my ship - contrived to break their blockade of the river mouth. It was as we began to turn the tide of the war, to impose _our_ will against the rabble's, that we were surprised, off the western point of Galma, by a pack of them; outnumbered and overwhelmed, we were forced to strike our colours; only eight of the forty men aboard her were spared, to be carried in chains to Black Jack's Tower, prisoners to be put to question."

"Tortured," whispered Lucy, clutching her brother's hand. "Oh, Drinian! I'm so sorry!"

"I was fortunate, Ma'am." The last glimpse of the shattered Tiger's deck had returned to him in nightmares down the years since; indeed it had been that agonised ship he had revisited in the darkness at the rescue of Lord Rhoop from the Isle of Dreams. "Half the crew - my friends - were slaughtered on deck; I saw the planking turn red, watched their blood flow over the side into the sea. It was purest chance that I was among the few they spared."

"Don't!" cried Caspian, Lucy and Celesta together. Drinian smiled, in a fashion, at their squeamishness.

"I refused to give my parole - my pledge not to attempt escape, Eustace," he explained, forestalling the immediate question. "An Etinsmere gives no promise to pirates! They held me chained in the dungeon between interrogations; but the chains were rusting, and with a little struggle I broke them. One night, when the guards made their late, drunken round to beat us a last time before bed, I broke free. I struck one villain across the temple with the chain's end; stole his sword and ran it through two of his associates on my flight. How I reached the quay, I'll never know; and what happened after is a blur. I know I stumbled into an open boat; the next thing I recall is waking aboard an Archenlandish brig, being told I was lucky not to have been sunk by my own allies!

"I was discharged to recover ashore; then recalled to service aboard the newest of the fleet's galleons, named Retribution; her sisters were Revenge and Reprisal. The war was won a twelvemonth later; but Your Majesties may easily imagine, my opinion of this place and its greedy, liverish people was set by my short stay in yonder fortress."

In daylight, Lucy had thought the craggy tower on its high bluff rather picturesque; now it loomed like a malevolent giant. "You needn't go to the banquet, Drinian, surely," she said, almost afraid to reach out and touch his clenched hand. He sent her a grateful smile.

"You're kind, Lucy, but you know I must. " he said, and whatever he might sometimes say about being first a sailor, then a lord of Narnia, it was the aristocrat, the courtier, ever conscious of the duty he owed his master and the kingdom, Edmund saw then. "And I shall. Only - if I'm less than my usual outspoken self, understand it! Where I see Master Torlow, I'll be looking for the great iron bar he used to beat his prisoners with too! Now, it grows late - and cold! Your Majesties will sleep aboard?"

"Knowing what we do of this island's government, we should sooner sleep on Deathwater than under Tonlock's roof!" Caspian clouted him on the shoulder, silently expressing the thanks Drinian would never wish to hear aloud. "Goodnight, one and all. If you're done with your endless leagues of rope, Captain, we might sail the morning after the banquet; is that acceptable to you?"

"More than acceptable." He felt oddly better for having spoken; as though the ghosts of his dead shipmates were returned to their rest by his acknowledging them. Small solace that would be, Drinian reflected, when he faced their murderers across the Royal table, but for the time being, it sufficed.

They spent the day of the feast aboard the Dawn Treader: having heard Drinian's story, nobody really felt much like exploring the city. The captain kept himself occupied amongst the men, overseeing the running up of the new rig and (in Lucy's opinion) thoroughly enjoying himself. "I suppose it's the only way he can stop himself thinking about tonight," she said, recalling his wise counsel that night on the Dufflepuds' island. _Don't think about it until you have to, Ma'am_, he had said.

"Wish I could help, then," said Edmund miserably. "Caspian, isn't there _any_ way you can let him out of it?"

"I wish I could." Poor Caspian looked far gloomier than his friend. "But - it would be a dangerous affront to the Terebinthians, and until the ship is set for sea again, we _are_ - more or less - hostages."

"The Lord Drinian will do his part, Your Majesty; not for naught is he Tirian's son," said Lord Argoz, trying to cheer his conscience-stricken sovereign. "And who of Terebinthia would dare lift a hand against the master of Narnia and his company? Be of cheer; the evening will pass quicker than this waiting time, and after, we'll all laugh that we dreaded the hospitality of these villains so!"


	14. Chapter 14 What friends are for

_WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR_

Lucy's stomach was in knots as they rode in torchlit procession up through the sprawling town, past shops filled with gold and fine things she knew to have been bloodily stolen from innocent ships, beyond the low-roofed cluster of commoners' homes to the larger, three-storied buildings that surrounded the Royal Palace atop a hill. She saw Edmund and Eustace whispering worriedly to each other; sensed the tension in Celesta's fingers as she clutched the reins of her sturdy mount close by. Caspian and Drinian, usually the leaders in any conversation, had not spoken a word since leaving the ship.

Great shadows loomed up before the doors of Tonlock's palace; the fat little monarch, swamped as usual by his jewelled gold robe, raised both pudgy arms in greeting, while behind and around him a dozen giants wearing shaggy beards and gold armlets, rings and chains, rumbled a menacing chorus of welcome. As the grooms swarmed to claim their mounts and the Narnians formed up behind their King for presentation, Lucy felt a frightened, angry sob work its way up in her throat.

"It's all right, Ma'am," said a low voice close to her ear. "Soon be over now."

She nodded, ashamed. It ought to be she, a Queen of Narnia, offering support, not he, the one most affected by the obscene horror of it all!

"Your Majesties all - gracious Lady! My Lords of Narnia, bid you humbly welcome to this, my modest home!" cried Tonlock expansively. Eustace wrinkled his nose.

"Beast!" he opined: but he said it under his breath, and no one heard to reproach him.

"Allow me to present to you all these gentlemen, the government of this island, without whom I should be at a loss!"

It took all Caspian's considerable strength of character to endure the bowing and smiling of a queue of notorious pirates; he knew if he dared glance to Drinian, his regal composure must falter, so he stared straight ahead, making the appropriate responses and silently pleading with Aslan to bring an end. Wenlock, the mad genius behind the Terebinthian _Fleet_; Torlow, constable of the fortress and torturer-in-chief; Munlow, presented as the Royal Chamberlain; and the Captain of the King's Guard, a raw fellow with a black patch where the left eye ought to be. "Our most faithful protector, Master Turlock," announced Tonlock.

"Your Majesties." Turlock bent stiffly over Caspian's extended hand. What impulse possessed him, Caspian never knew; but before the fleshy lips could touch it, he pulled the hand away.

"Sir," he said, covering his confusion (and the startled silence that had fallen in the wake of his action) with a carefully-pinned smile. "We are most grateful, my Lord King, for your generous hospitality; we regret only that we cannot savour it longer, for we must sail on the dawn tide tomorrow."

"So soon, Your Majesty?" exclaimed Munlow, clasping his hands in a faintly womanish gesture of dismay at odds with his great size and deep voice. "Why, and when I passed your ship this morning, she stood naked at the mast, without rigging, without…"

"Our ship's company is exceedingly efficient, Master Munlow; and the knowledge of home's nearness encourages their labours." So, they had been observing the work aboard. Caspian shot a worried glance toward his friend, sure Drinian would have picked up on the fact as quickly as he had himself.

Drinian had heard not a word that had been spoken since the one-eyed man had been presented. He stood as if turned to stone, his narrowed stare piercing the startled villain. "Does it not, my Lord?" Caspian prompted.

"Eh? Aye, quite so, Your Majesty."

"He knows _that_ fellow, too," whispered Eustace. The Lord Revelian nodded.

"And their acquaintance was not pleasant," he agreed softly. "Though I doubt any man's could be with so obvious a blackguard!"

The royal councillors, it seemed to Caspian, were suddenly very anxious to shorten the formalities of welcome and establish their guests at enormous trestle tables set end to end along the hall. In accustomed fashion, each Narnian guest would be flanked by two of his (or her) hosts. Lucy realised with alarm that she would be seated between Wenlock and Munlow, neither of whom she expected would have much to discuss with a girl from a different world; and Edmund, the nearest of her own party to her place, was facing Wenlock, with Munlow's wife and another rough-looking fellow, whose name she had not heard, on either side. She ate the soup course in nervous silence, painfully aware there would be several more courses to follow before the necessary speeches of empty goodwill could even begin.

It was small solace to know that every other Narnian was feeling the discomfort no less acutely. Or that some of the Terebinthians, too, appeared distinctly uneasy as they considered their guests.

"The food is, I trust, to Your Majesty's taste?" rumbled Wenlock, his breath damp against her ear. Lucy almost jumped out of her chair.

"Oh! Yes, thank you, it's very nice," she babbled,though the sauce that smothered the oily fish of the newest course was far from her liking. He nodded.

"There are those that say our Terebinthian cooking's an _acquired taste_," he mused. Lucy, delicately dabbing her mouth (and spitting out a tiny bone unnoticed), managed a watery smile.

"You tend to use rather more _spices_ than we do in Narnia," she volunteered, as her brother rolled his eyes her way to indicate he, too, was trapped in a perfectly pointless conversation.

The plentiful quantities of wine, mead and ale offered with the food, Edmund noticed, made no impact on the strained atmosphere around the long table of honour. There again, neither did the fact that the goblets in which the drinks were served had for decoration (roughly scratched over) the Royal Arms of Archenland.

He couldn't help feeling he was tasting the blood of the pirate-councillors' victims with every sip of sweet, honeyed mead he took.

Still, he had to drink at least a little of the sickly concoction to counter the vibrant taste of spices which smothered every savoury course on offer: swan, venison, goose and capon all tasted the same under their thick, gooey sauces. And the more time he spent with a cup or a spoon at his mouth, the less he was expected to engage in stilted small-talk with his neighbours.

Lord, he hated this island!

From his seat beside King Tonlock, Caspian observed the tense faces of his countrymen, growing more and more anxious. Drinian was calm - too calm! - his low voice controlled as he responded to the occasional clumsy flirtation from the over-jewelled and goggling-eyed _councillor's wife_ at his right, keeping himself turned toward her and away from the one-eyed giant whose appearance had initially disconcerted him. All the hostility he kept squeezed from his tone was apparent, to one who knew him well, in his posture: rigid, tense, he held himself more like a man awaiting a traitor's assault than the honoured guest of a ruling sovereign.

And so the torment continued, through soup and fish and meat and more meat. Until they thought it would never end. Until the sharp sound of racing feet in the corridors, of voices raised in agitation, penetrated the thick walls and the haze of candle smoke. The double doors at the head of the chamber were thrown inward with a crash and a blast of chilly air that made the lantern flames sway and the ladies shudder. "M'lord! 'Ere's a man o' the Dawn Treader, beggin' speech with the Lord Drinian!"

"Rynelf!" The gentleman in question was halfway out of his seat before the announcement could be made.

"This fellow brings ill news, if I read his face aright," rumbled Wenlock, all false concern.

"What in the Lion's name ails you, man?" cried Caspian.

"Your Majesties - noble gentlemen - ladies." He was babbling, and Rynelf never babbled; that was Rhince's job in a crisis, or so Drinian sometimes teased his deputy. "Sir! I'm sent by Rhince to beg you, return to the ship at once, the Mate's at a loss!"

"The new rig?" Drinian demanded, pushing back his chair before good manners asserted themselves, even against his will. "Your Majesty - Sire…"

"Of course you must return to your ship directly, my dear Captain, if your stout-hearted deputy is so troubled!" cried Tonlock, his voice shrill over the deeper, more threatening rumbles of his associates. Caspian nodded, biting hard on his lip.

"Send to us immediately, my Lord, should there be any need," he instructed, rising with Tonlock as Drinian strode the length of the chamber, with just the briefest of bows to be divided between the nobilities present. "Aslan! I trust this _crisis_ can be swiftly resolved," he added, low-voiced.

"So do I!" Rhince was so capable, so sure of himself; for _his_ authority and experience to be insufficient meant real trouble, and that might mean a longer stay on this hateful island than they had already endured. Lucy's throat got tight. _I _won't_ cry_, she told herself fiercely_. I'm a Queen of Narnia, and they don't howl when things go wrong!_

Though the stilted conversations had been painful, the silence that followed the decisive clanging of the great doors behind Drinian was even harder to bear. "Couldn't we all have gone?" whispered Eustace. The Lord Mavramorn shook his shaggy head.

"Landsfolk aboard would create further havoc, young master," he said, with the absolute confidence (Caspian thought) of a _damnable lubber_ who had more than once made himself a nuisance to the professional sailors on his own eastern quest. "Though I confess, the escape from this present _torment_ would be welcome enough! Ah, yes, more wine, thank you, sir. I have perfect confidence; our Captain will soon set matters aright. Your Majesty?"

"Hm? Oh! Yes, yes of course." Caspian deliberately relaxed the death-grip he held on his goblet stem. Celesta smiled.

"I have not the smallest doubt, all will be well," she said, so serene that Edmund gave her a very narrow stare.

She met his eyes steadily, with just the faintest turning up at one corner of her mouth. _Could she…?_ He wondered.

It wasn't the time, but Edmund was absolutely determined that, before the night's end, he would find out why _she_, who knew less about sailing ships than any of them, should have responded with such terrible, sanguine certainty!

* * *

His head felt heavy; his stomach faintly queasy. _Too much of that horrid, sugary mead_, Eustace concluded groggily, clutching extra tightly at the reins of his stolid little cob as it ambled behind Lucy's at the heart of a noisy torchlit procession down from the castle to the quay. Drummers and buglers led the way, disturbing the honest citizens of Port Terebinthia (if there _were_ any such, which by all accounts was doubtful) with the news that Narnia's King was retiring to his ship at last. 

The Dawn Treader, though he knew his vision was a touch hazy,_ looked_ well enough; the intricate spider's web of rope work climbed in its familiar complicated pattern around the mast and sails; there was no sign of frantic activity on deck of the sort he associated with a crisis; no shouted orders or curses reached their ears on the still night air. "Dunno what we were worried 'bout," he mumbled, wondering why his tongue suddenly seemed too big for his mouth.

The musicians, then the torch-bearers, peeled away, leaving only the grooms to step forth and reclaim the King of Terebinthia's horses as the Narnians dismounted and clambered up the gangplank, left lowered in expectation of their return. "Your Majesties!"

"My Lord Drinian." Caspian matched the Captain's bow with his own. "All well?" he asked in a low voice.

"Aye." The stern set of the taller man's features relaxed. He leaned forward, taking advantage of the shadows cast by the four long-absent lords to shield his action from prying eyes. "And _thank you_, Caspian," he added, quiet and fervent.

"If I could only have done more, my friend," murmured the King, as the children gaped. "But I _told_ them _not_, on _any _account, to reveal my part in the business."

"Rynelf and Rhince told me naught, Sire; but they're paltry liars," answered Drinian cheerfully, ushering the group aboard with a nod to the sentry on duty, guiding them down the hatch and into the Great Cabin. "Their assurances that the _troubles with the new rig_ had been mysteriously solved were - not especially _convincing. _As to the rest - well, that I guessed for myself."

"I could not leave you suffering that torment, Drinian," said Caspian, much touched. Celesta shook her head, bringing a great silk curtain of yellow hair about her face.

"And I never suspected for a second!" she marvelled. "I see my lord is more devious than I had imagined!"

"Did you really not guess?" Edmund felt guilty for doubting, but her composure when everyone else was horror-struck had been really remarkable. "I rather thought - _you _weren't at all _alarmed_ when Rynelf came charging in… it occurred to me that _you_ must know something _we_ didn't."

"Honestly, Ed!" exclaimed Lucy. The Star's Daughter lifted her outstretched hands.

"Ignorance is a fair refuge, King Edmund," she said, as Caspian moved behind to unclasp the cloak that hung from her slender shoulders. "Knowing naught of ships, I merely assumed that what ever the crisis might be, our Captain would overcome it soon enough."

"Your confidence is gratefully received, Ma'am," said the Captain dryly. Everyone laughed.

"Who was that other fellow, Drinian?" Edmund wanted to know. "The chap with the eye-patch, I mean. You knew him immediately, didn't you?"

"'Tis hardly a face a man could forget, King Edmund; especially having been first seen under _those_ circumstances." He had known, Drinian acknowledged, that his shocked recognition must have revealed itself, to his own party at least. "The name I never heard, but the face… aye, that I saw, aboard the stricken Tiger off the north of Galma. The _Captain of the Royal Guard_ gave the orders to the butchers that slit the throats and split open the bellies of twenty-five honest men before we few captives were thrown into the boats and chained for the journey to Black Jack's Tower. There was no patch over the eye then - just the empty socket -and the face was a touch less scarred than now. But it was he."

Nobody dared to question the certainty of the identification. Stunned, they stared at the speaker, trying (and failing) to imagine the sickening assault of bloody memory Drinian had experienced at the steps of the Palace. "Can you ever forgive me, that I demanded such a thing of you?" whispered Caspian.

"You _demanded_ nothing; and by Turlock's presence I was prevented remembering much of Master Torlow's brutalities." No point allowing the sovereign to wallow in guilt! "And it was your kindness gave me means of escape. Oh, I'll do well enough, Caspian, once we're away from this pestilential island!"

"Tomorrow," the King promised earnestly, clasping his old associate's hands. "Great Lion! What manner of horrors have you been compelled to relive, and in the name of Narnia?"

"For which alone they can be borne." There would be nightmares again tonight; he was resigned to that. But soon there would be Galma, then the green, gentle coast of Narnia and the comfort of home. "Merely the sight o' that prison would have revived all the ghosts, Caspian; I was prepared for that."

"Let's leave the ladies to their rest; boys, you've no need to remain yawning, go to your hammocks; I shall do my utmost not to disturb you after. Drinian - share a cup of ale with me before retiring."

To his (and the children's) relief, the taller man's face softened into a genuine smile. "I'll fetch the flagon, Caspian; make yourself comfortable in the cabin," he said. "Goodnight, one and all. We'll be sailing with the dawn tide; there's no cause for you to rise, unless you'd care to watch this miserable chunk o' rock subsiding over the horizon!"

"I think I should, actually," said Lucy solemnly. "Well done, Caspian," she added softly, as that gentleman turned, slowly, to follow the others from the ladies' cabin.

"What else was I to do?" enquired the young King, perplexed. "After all, what _are_ friends for?"


	15. Chapter 15 News from home

Author's Notes: The last island before Narnia, and another quayside greeting: I couldn't resist bringing the Duke and his daughter (squints and has freckles) together with Celesta. And what news awaits the intrepid travelers as Narnia draws near? Huge thanks to Almyra and Asphalt Angel for their incredibly encouraging reviews.

_NEWS OF HOME_

"I cannot see the Duke." The words leaked from the side of Caspian's mouth as he raised his hand in response to cheers from the crowded quayside. "Can he have galleons of _this_ grandeur approaching his island from the east _so_ often?"

"I fancy he has - despatched a representative, Sire." Formality was Drinian's refuge when impertinent laughter was too near. Following the line of his friend's gaze, the King groaned.

"Hang it! Of course, he _would_ send _her_!"

"Who?" asked Eustace. Lucy rolled her eyes.

"You mean _whom_, Eustace."

"I know exactly what I mean. Who's he sent?"

"His daughter." Edmund understood, and he grinned. "Golly! She'll not be pleased to see _you_, Celesta!"

"Perhaps I ought to remain on board." The Star's Daughter edged behind Drinian. "It would be _impolite_ to distress our hosts."

"It'd be ruder for the next Queen of Narnia to have skulked aboard ship in an allied harbour," countered Edmund. The others nodded.

"Galma dare not offend Narnia, Ma'am," Drinian told her. Celesta straightened her shoulders.

"If it must be so, my Lord, I shall endure it. Is _that_ the lady they hoped you might choose, Caspian?"

"She's not exactly _ugly_," said Lucy.

"No oil painting, either," muttered Eustace, trailing after the others toward the gangway.

"Your Majesty! Words cannot express the joy of all Galmians in witnessing this triumphal return!"

"You are too kind, my Lady Malena." The hand she extended was small, dainty and smothered in coppery freckles. "You see we bring a larger party westward than halted here in preparation for our great adventure."

"Any companion of Your Most Excellent Majesty is assured the hospitality of our island, Sire." Her left eye was skewed, its marked cast making it seem she stared over his shoulder, directly into the face of the stooped and shaggy Rhoop. "I trust you will accompany me to the castle? My father will be honoured above all to have you as our guest."

"Your Ladyship is most kind; our stay must of necessity be short, with every man of us yearning for Narnia, but if it can be achieved without burden to Duke Rairton, we shall be honoured to bide a night. My Lord Drinian, our valiant Captain, is known to you…"

"And dearly welcomed, Sir." The fine hand was offered imperiously; bending the knee (but not brushing it into the dirt as lesser men would, being first nobleman of Narnia) Drinian kissed it.

"Your Ladyship is too kind. I trust we find you in health, Madam?"

"I thank you, yes. If our people can be of any assistance to your crew, Captain, only tell, and it will be done."

Drinian tilted his dark head, considering the question. "We've no pressing needs, Ma'am; save the purchase of some gold leaf. The prow ought to be gleaming as it did the day we sailed for His Majesty's return to Narnia."

"It will be attended; not as a sale, but as a gift of this island; nay, Sire, I shall insist, and so will my father. Will _all_ your party here follow to the castle?"

"With your Ladyship's approval. Madam, when last we met, you were so generous as to wish Us well in Our search; We trust you will rejoice in Our presenting these four gentlemen, the Lords Argoz, Mavramorn, Revelian and Rhoop, those friends of the late King my honoured father…."

"Indeed we do rejoice, and bid you welcome, Sirs, to the isle where _your _quest began. Of the crew gathered here…"

"No trace could be found, Madam. I am sorry to say it."

"That even_ four_ of those who sailed aboard the Tiger of Galamaia should be discovered safe is more than any who watched her depart would have dreamed, Sire." She appeared willing to forego further introductions until later. Caspian would not allow it.

"Also, it is Our privilege to present Our fabled predecessors on the Throne of Narnia; Queen Lucy and King Edmund of Ancient time, together with their noble kinsman, Master Eustace."

"Your Majesties." Just the faintest touch of awe. "You there! Fetch more horses from Master Jarick's stable! Their Ancient Majesties and their kinsman must go honourably mounted to the castle!"

She turned, dismissing Celesta without words; a servant of the ancient Queen, discreetly standing with head bowed a pace behind her mistress. Had Caspian, reading her thoughts with scalding clarity, not coughed, she would never have turned back.

"Your Ladyship is hospitable. I must request a gentle mount for this lady, who of all our party is least accustomed to the saddle. Allow that I make known at once she who has made me the most blessed of men: the Lady Celesta, daughter to the stars and the Eastern Sea, who sails with us as my betrothed bride, Narnia's future queen."

Malena's reaction was one of those odd things seen by several people in different ways. Lucy always maintained her plump, pinkish cheeks went so horribly pale the heavy pattern of freckles spattering them looked positively garish: Eustace that she rocked far enough back on her heels to need lead toes to her slippers to bring her back upright. Drinian said (very fairly) that her whole face froze for an instant before she remembered her manners (and her audience). And they all agreed with Edmund when he declared that she delivered one positively scorching look; and that its victim, if a glare could reduce a person to ash, would not have been the lady more fortunate than herself, but the gentleman who had made her so.

"The Lady Celesta will ride my own jennet, Sire; indeed I insist, Madam! Now we must make haste; my father is ardent to hear of Your Highness' adventures; and he holds letters, entrusted to him in the name of my Lord Regent Trumpkin, for placing into Your Majesty's hands at the earliest moment. Sound the trumpets! Make way for the King of Narnia, Their Ancient Majesties, my Lords of the Realm, and my Lady his Highness's bride! Make way, I say! For the guests of your Duke!"

They considered themselves fortunate that the formalities on arriving at the castle were cut short: presented with proof that his schemes had failed, Duke Rairton showed no malice, nor any desire to keep the King of Narnia on his island more than a single night. "Your Highness' faithful servant Trumpkin sent these letters, Sire, to be placed into your hands by none but myself," he said, bowing gravely as he fulfilled his errand. Caspian beamed.

"Letters to all the crew!" he exclaimed, turning each individual missive from one hand to the next. "How considerate of our excellent Regent to have despatched this! My Lord Drinian, you'll send these back to the ship immediately, of course?"

"Gladly, Sire. Is there an answer from that scatterbrained _Dwarf _to Your Majesty's letter from Narrowhaven?"

"Aye, which we'll look through the instant we have our shipmates' communications dispatched. Ah!"

The slyness in Caspian's look alarmed Edmund and Lucy for different reasons: he, because he suddenly saw a resemblance to the usurper, Miraz, in the rightful King's face, and she because she simply hated to see anyone being teased. "_This_ perhaps we had best hold back," said Caspian airily, waving one particular paper, addressed in a fine, ladylike hand. Drinian cleared his throat.

"As Your Majesty pleases," he said stiffly. Caspian sighed.

"I apologise," he said, proffering the object to support the word with an appropriate deed. "It _is_ her hand, of course?"

"It is." Blandly, Drinian tucked the paper inside his jerkin. Caspian looked disappointed.

"I might have thought you would be wild with impatience to read it, my Lord," he whined.

"Caspian, don't _pry_," instructed Lucy. Drinian flashed a grateful smile.

"I'll send these down to the ship immediately, Sire, if my Lord Duke can spare a man for the errand?"

"With great pleasure; and we shall have another show Your Majesty's party to the best suite of chambers we have in readiness. If Your Graces wish peace and privacy until supper - which we beg you do us the honour of sharing at our table - it shall be granted."

"You are most kind, my Lord." Their host was regarding Celesta with the question plain in his eyes. _What has this stranger my Malena lacks?_

Any man of the Dawn Treader's party might have answered, Caspian knew; his choice of consort had the unanimous approval of every subject to meet her, which the Lady of Galamaia could never have obtained. Still, to see her compelled to bear open scrutiny displeased him. "If your gentleman here will be so kind as to lead the way…" he suggested. A whey-faced, lounging usher at the doorway sprang to attention.

"The New Annexe, my Lord?" he enquired. Rairton nodded.

"At once. I trust Your Majesty's information from the estimable Sir Trumpkin will be wholly pleasing. Until we dine, Your Graces all." Bowing (and biting his lip, though perhaps only Lucy saw it) he left them to his servant's care.

* * *

"What does Trumpkin say?" she demanded, the instant Usher Tudoc had retreated into the hall which cut New Annexe from Old Castle. Edmund darted beyond her, slid the door open an inch and stuck out a twitching nose.

"All clear," he said, sheepish. "One can't be too careful of eavesdroppers at foreign courts. Duke Rairton may be civil, but he's hardly going to be _friendly _after you sprang _that _little shock on him, Caspian!"

The King shrugged and dug a thumbnail into Narnia's Lion Seal, scattering shards of red wax across the carpet. He scanned the first sentence, smiling at the familiar black, rounded scrawl.

"First, we may be easy. Calormen has not stirred in our absence."

Drinian puffed out his sun-browned cheeks. "Weak Tisrocs and a run o' bad harvests be praised!" he exclaimed.

"Quite so." The King arched a golden brow. "Further; the news of our arriving safe in familiar waters has caused celebration across the kingdom. Even Cornelius forgot his aching joints - Trumpkin insists, 'tis the curse of the half-blood dwarf - so far as to _lumber_ with Trufflehunter at Dancing Lawn in our honour. The realm is peaceful and prospering; a tribute to the shrewd management of My Highness's most devoted Regent."

"Sounds like a pitch for your job, Caspian!"

Instantly, Edmund regretted his thoughtless joke. Caspian's mobile features froze, and Drinian's eyes shuttered, their onyx sparkle turned to unpolished jet.

"He says also," the King continued, wooden, "that our Royal uncle, King Lune of Archenland, has sickened in recent weeks; that by our reading of these words, he is likely dead. Imagine, Drinian! Corin Cracked-Pate may be King of Archenland!"

"Caspian, don't be horrid!"

"You have not the dubious honour of acquaintance with my addle-brained kinsman, Queen Lucy!" Briefly, introspection fled from two handsome faces.

"I pity my Lords of Anvard," Drinian chuckled. "Old King Lune was a fine man, mind; none was kinder to an orphaned exile than he. If he's gone, 'tis to be regretted on more than one account."

"Anelia will be greatly distressed."

"Aye."

Another uncertain pause! Eustace had thought they would be excited, chattering faster than an irate mouse at news from home. Drinian touched the right side of his chest, making the paper inside his jerkin crackle. At the slight sound, his fingers twitched.

"The Giants of the Wild Lands paid their tribute in full and on the appointed date," Caspian continued, paraphrasing from the rambling announcements of his regent. "Trumpkin considers that a Narnian army in full array at their border facilitated matters greatly. Drinian, for the Lion's sake, _read_ her letter, man, and cease your incessant _fiddling_ with it!"

He snatched the hand away as if his jacket was on fire. "If Your Majesties will excuse me," he said tightly, making a lunge at the door. Caspian buried his head in both hands.

Nothing he did could cut out the accusatory stares of the ladies. "I know!" he groaned, his contrition dissipating at least a little of Lucy's shocked dismay. "I ought not stamp on so sensitive a corn, but hang it! One would expect a man lost in love (and Drinian, for all his brusqueness, is assuredly _that_) ought to be avid for first words from his beloved in more than a twelvemonth! What is he _thinking_ of?"

"He didn't look _avid_ to me," said Eustace carefully. "He seemed perfectly calm, except when he touched the letter. _Then _he seemed to get a - a…"

"A worried look around the eyes," finished Edmund. The Star's Daughter clapped a hand across her mouth.

"Do you not recall his words, on Coriakin's island?" she demanded, the words seeping reluctantly through her long fingers. "When Your Majesties spoke of Narnia, and of a lady awaiting our bold Captain's return? He said…"

"That he would yearn for a glimpse of her, until the time came to discover if she had not forsaken him for some _damnable confounded lubber_." Caspian recited it flatly, all his healthy colour drained. "No! The Lady of Glasswater is faithful as a Badger and devoted as - as ever a sweetheart was to her sailor! I _cannot_ believe she would abandon him!"

"Drinian may not be so sure, now the test approaches."

"Then Drinian is as great a fool as the Rabbit-Man of the Lantern Waste! Nay, you shall see; five minutes hence, he'll burst into the room, large as life and thrice as boisterous, telling us his Daniela is the truest and best lady that ever breathed! Just see if he doesn't!"

Five minutes passed; ten; fifteen, and more: in fact, to Lucy it felt as if she had been watching the door, memorising the grain of the wood and the flaking of the paint, for longer than she had sailed aboard the Dawn Treader. Drinian had not returned, boisterous or otherwise, and even Caspian's best attempts to sustain a conversation had flagged.

Trumpkin's letter had been passed about, glanced at and forgotten. Dusk closed around the unplanned sprawl of the Ducal Residence; from their grand, panoramic window they could see feeble pinpricks of light burst out as the residents of Galamaia lit their homes.

"This is _awful_!" Eustace burst out, always first to succumb to impatience. "Don't you hate _not knowing_?"

"P'raps we ought to form search parties?"

"No, Ed!" Lucy's cry forestalled their scrambling. "Drinian would hate us digging him out to _pry_."

"I shall go." Caspian was guiltily aware of having provoked the crisis. Celesta nodded.

"If our friend will speak with any of us, it will be you," she agreed.

Feeling more like a man about to enter a dragon's lair than to seek out his oldest friend, Caspian squared his shoulders, stuck out his chin, and reached for the door handle. "Yes," he said, before resolution could fail him. "I _shall_ go."

He tried as he left them to imagine where Drinian might have gone: he could be about the castle; or wandering the harbour; or, most likely were he really troubled, he could be back aboard the Dawn Treader.

The first place seemed the least likely, an opinion confirmed by two careful questions to loitering servants. The Captain of His Majesty's ship was not within the Ducal Palace.

"Your Majesty!" Edmund's caution, he couldn't help noting, was wholly justified by the appearance, hands being dramatically wrung, of the Ducal daughter. "What is _this _we hear? The Lord Drinian gone _missing_? What may we do to assist your search?"

"I doubt not there is a simple explanation, dear lady; but perhaps you might be so kind as to procure me a stout mount for a journey through town?"

"But - but most gracious Sire!"

"I fancy my friend will be returned to the ship, Madam," Caspian explained, infuriatingly bland. "With a good horse beneath me, I can retrieve him within the hour."

He discovered that a pout, when planted upon an unloved face, could be singularly unappealing. "Still, there is no cause for Your Highness to go in person! Allow that a man of this house carries your summons to the ship!"

"I think it best I go myself, my Lady." Though his jaw cracked painfully, Caspian maintained his smile. "It is not, perhaps, the wisest thing, to let a stern sailor like our Captain gather up a King's garments for dinner at a valued ally's court."

"Oh! Oh, in_ that_ case, of _course_!" The Daughter of Galma clapped her speckled hands, her troubled frown melting into a really charming (he was too fair not to concede it) smile. "Though the Lord Drinian _does_ become those practical mariner's clothes very _well_…"

"We would not wish to don them Ourself on such an occasion," Caspian finished solemnly. Malena gurgled.

"Shall we not saddle _two_ horses, Sire? My Lord Drinian can be restored the sooner…"

"If it be not too grievous an imposition upon your ladyship's good grooms." Drinian would assuredly prefer to walk, but if he was determined to inconvenience his friends by vanishing, he had to accept the consequences!

* * *

Five minutes (and a sore throat from repeating that no, he really _didn't_ need an escort) later, Caspian clattered out of the Residence, a spare animal following on a long leading rein, into Galamaia on market's eve, with all its bustling preparation and noise. Down via Fisherman's Quay, nose wrinkled against the stench of a new catch, and on beside the store-houses, taverns and whore-houses, to where the Dawn Treader bobbed, a bright, exotic bird on the murky port waters.

Rhince came down the gangplank to greet his sovereign on the landward end, wiping paint-smeared hands against his smock. "Y've come for the Cap'n, Your Majesty," he stated. The instant surge of relief Caspian felt in his guess being proved right faded under the big man's troubled stare. "We was getting a mite worried, Sire, 'til Rynelf spied you comin'. Cap'n climbed aboard two hours ago, scowlin' an' givin' orders not to be disturbed. 'E disappeared into the cabin, Sire, an' we ain't seen 'im since. Shall I run on an' announce you, Sire?"

"Nay, Rhince." They climbed the sloping gangway, the slight, spruce monarch overshadowed by his burly companion. "If any man is to be roared at for _disobedience to orders_, grant that it be me."

"Glad enough to, Your Majesty."

There was a whisper of exasperation, drowned out by affectionate concern, in the prompt reply. Caspian raced up the poop ladder, gave a nod to the man on watch, then through a low, arched doorway into the gloomy interior. He paused a moment, his back to the door of the Royal Cabin, staring at the barrier between Drinian and himself. More afraid than he could remember being since Rhoop's half-inhuman voice had screamed the truth of the Dark Island to him, he lifted a hand, and knocked.

"What in the name of - oh!" Drinian cut himself off mid-rant, thereby confirming all Caspian's suspicions about his acting skills. "What brings Your Majesty aboard?"

"Not Majesty, but Caspian." The taller man was composed, which lightened his fears. "I am sorry, Drinian. My teasing was clumsy; and ill-conceived."

"And my response, its equal." Drinian seized the proffered hand and hauled its owner into his modest room. His teeth flashed, brilliant white in the shadowy half-light creeping through the galleon's sternports. "She waits for me, Caspian! All these months without word, and still she _waits_! Can you conceive of it?"

"Of course she waits!" His own dread conveniently forgotten, Caspian allowed himself to be swung, an oversized rag doll, around the cabin. "My Lady of Glasswater is constant as the ocean, and she adores you. Shame on you, my Lord, for ever doubting - though to this day, I never guessed you _did_!"

"Though 'twas I first raised the prospect, Sire, no more did I until I saw her letter." Giddy, Drinian leaned back against the outer bulkhead. "I _cannot_ be worthy of such a woman, Caspian! Do you ever think that of Celesta?"

"Daily." Unconsciously, the eyes of both were drawn to the two pages spread on Drinian's plain writing table, closely covered in a light and dainty hand. "I trust our wives will be _friends_, Drinian! Can you imagine the horror, if they were to detest each other on first sight?"

"I'd think that less than likely." He could be optimistic about anything now he knew his sweetheart would be waiting when the Dawn Treader anchored at Cair Paravel. "How could two such friends as we love women that couldn't bear each other? Can we not depart for Narnia this instant?"

"By the Lion, would that we could!" Laughing, Caspian flung an arm around his exultant friend. "But Duke Rairton has borne with much from me today; fleeing from his supper table would be too much! I shall gather my finery; I expect to see you enter the Great Hall in yours, and with a good grace; Daniela expects her dashing courtier as much as her venturesome sailor returned to Etinsmere! And hurry! The _daughter_ has word of your escaping; we dare not linger 'til she sends half the household of that ugly _residence_ in pursuit of us _both_!"


	16. Chapter 16 The last night

Author's Note: I debated leaving this short chapter out, but decided in the end to go with it, in tribute to the Dawn Treader's men. We don't hear much of them in the book, but no ship of any world could make such a huge voyage without this kind of confidence between the Captain and his crew.

_THE LAST NIGHT_

"Your Majesty."

"Aslan's Mane, what formality, Captain!" cried the Star's Daughter. His raven head sticking up to the forecastle from the main deck ladder, Drinian flashed her an unrepentant smile.

"With your permission, Sire, I should like to gather all hands," he continued, with equal solemnity. Caspian, his forehead creased, nodded.

"Of course, if you wish to address them," he said, puzzled. Drinian vaulted up the last steps to join them, hands cupped to his mouth.

"Rhince!" he bellowed aft to the man on the watch. "Muster all hands!"

"Aye aye, Cap'n! All 'ands to the main deck! Shift along, you lazy lubbers! All 'ands to the main deck!"

Lanterns were lit; torches flared, casting the forecastle into pulsing shadow as the crew milled together on the main deck below, upturned faces showing clear an instant before subsiding back into night's gloom. The royal passengers clustered together at the starboard side, staying close as much for reassurance as for warmth on a chilly spring night. "What's he up to?" whispered Edmund. Caspian lifted his shoulders.

"He has said naught of this to _me_," he answered, quite put out. Celesta, under cover of dark and her gown's loose sleeve, reached for his hand.

Drinian's thoughtful gaze shifted across his quiet company, as if to memorise first one face, then the next. "Well, men," he said at length, conversational: calm, Lucy thought, like the weary survivor of a long and arduous war. _Or a mariner with the scent of home after a long voyage,_ she amended. "Tomorrow, we drop anchor in our home port."

The crew raised a hearty cheer. Drinian lifted a hand, and they fell instantly silent.

"With our great voyage ended, your commissions lapse. Some of you, I hope, may yet return to the service of our Fleet; that others may have had their fill of the sea can only be understood. As this will be my last night as your captain…"

"We'm goin' nowhere, Sir!" shouted a voice from the dark mass. Edmund rather suspected it belonged to Erlick. The rumbling murmur - assent or disagreement? - that followed seemed to resonate in the very timbers of the hull.

"Make no pledge until you have your land-legs regained," Drinian advised, and though he was younger than them all, there was something paternal in the way he regarded them. Rhince coughed, feigning embarrassment.

"Beggin' yer pardon, Cap'n, but does that stand for you, too?"

"Some of us have no choice to make," Drinian allowed, cheerfully enough. "Any man of you who - after proper consideration ashore - expresses a wish to remain with the Fleet will be welcomed; a statement I hardly thought to make after our lady Dawn Treader's maiden voyage!"

Some of the men groaned, or covered their faces in mock dismay. Rhince's hearty bellow overlaid them all. "Thought they was goin' to put us up atop the Thirty League Rocks, I did!" he howled.

"A fear I shared, though discipline prevented my expressing it so _colourfully_ as you." Not more than a handful of the crew, Lucy remembered, had ever been beyond sight of Narnia's coast before the royal galleon set sail for her seagoing trials. "I'll confess, in my report to His Majesty on our return to Narnia, I advised that the venture into _unknown_ seas be delayed at least until I had half a dozen men capable of reading a chart our own coast correctly."

Somebody sniggered. Rhince glared. "Yer really was that bad!"

"They know it, Rhince; and 'tis a tribute to their resilience - and our iron lungs - that they have learned." Drinian paused, choosing his words with unwonted care.

On the main deck, nobody fidgeted, or sighed. They looked up earnestly at their tall commander, his height emphasised by the flaring torch behind his right shoulder. "How well he manages them!" whispered Celesta. Caspian squeezed her hand.

"They adore him, not that_ he_ would guess it," he agreed.

"Our fears, from that day onward, have been allayed," Drinian began again, frowning, "by the diligence, courage and self-reliance every man of you has shown, through flat calms and raging storms, past Sea Serpents, Krakens, exploding islands and the Edge of the World. Though Rhince and I have both cursed you - begging the pardon of our passengers - for a crowd of _contemptible damned lubbers_, you have borne with it all, and grown into the finest crew a man-o'-war ever carried into dangerous waters

"The rewards promised you all by His Majesty have been richly earned; with then you have my admiration, and my gratitude, for that stout-heartedness, cheerfulness and seamanship that has brought us close, at last, to home. No captain ever commanded a finer crew; and lest this be the last opportunity I have to say it, none was ever more proud of his shipmates than I. Dismissed."

"Oh, Ed!" gasped Lucy, her little half-sob echoing loud across the silent vessel. "How _marvellous_!"

The crew shuffled and murmured, but did not disperse, their lack of movement stopping Drinian mid-turn toward his passengers. Rynelf, ever the spokesman of the lower decks, coughed, embarrassed.

"By your leave, Sir," he said, squinting against the strong light of the forward torches. "Us fellows have something we'd like to have said."

Drinian cocked his head. "As you choose, Rynelf," he replied, startled.

"Well, Sir, it's just this; we know we was, to use the Mate here's phrase, a _scurvy rotten excuse for a crew _when first we came aboard - aye, even the few of us that _had_ been to sea had scarce the seamanship of a river-boatman! I'll grant Rhince here this, he's done his part--"

"Aye, bawlin' and bellowin' and usin' up the baccy!" shouted Peridan good-naturedly.

"I does it well; the Cap'n'll tell ye!"

"None better," Drinian agreed promptly. "'Tis the Mate's job on any ship - seconded by the Boson - to make the most noise and confusion in the name o' _work_."

"However," Rynelf continued, looking (or perhaps it was the distorting effect of the starlight, Edmund thought) slightly defiant. "If we _are_ become a crew to do Narnia credit, Captain, we have _you_ to thank for it. We have tried your tolerance…"

"And found it sorely wanting!" cut in Caspian, to raucous laughter in which Drinian gladly joined.

"And caused you to cuss at our _unseamanly ways_," the sailor finished earnestly. "But never once have you turned in anger from us, Sir; and in every crisis you mentioned (and all the rest, besides) we always looked to survive with confidence, knowing we had you to lead us right. We are the crew you've made us, Captain, and we thank you, every man-jack of us, for it!"

"Too right!" shouted Erlian.

"Well spoken, Rynelf!" added Hofian, his deep bass trundling through the raw shouts of his fellows' enthusiasm. Rhince pushed himself up from his slouch against the mainmast, both hands cupped around his mouth.

"Right, lads! Three cheers for our Cap'n!" he bawled. "Hip-hip!"

"Hooray!"

Lucy joined in the cheers, though her throat was tightened by tears at the expression of perfect astonishment on Drinian's face. "He really doesn't know how they love him!" she marvelled.

"A captain's job is to be respected, not liked," Edmund quoted. "Our captain, Purlian, used to say that, Lu, d'you remember? Though I doubt Splendour Hyaline's crew knew him so well as these fellows know Drinian; we never got beyond the Roads of Narrowhaven in _our_ day! It was awfully decent of you to say that to them," he added, as the scrum on the main deck splintered and the party for'ard had peace to talk. "They really didn't expect anything."

"Sprang a fair surprise of their own, King Edmund," Drinian retorted, as Caspian rolled his eyes. "They deserved to hear it said, mind. I had my doubts when we weighed anchor off Cair Paravel, but they _are_ become the best of crews, and sorry I shall be to lose a man of them to the land; at least now Pittencream's run, the scurvy dog!"

"Has he not family in Narnia?" wondered Celesta.

"None that we discovered, Ma'am." Drinian tipped back his head, sucking in a cool, refreshing draught of briny air. "Well, duty's done, and I'm for my bed. We might hope to sight the Cair midday tomorrow, so long as this breeze holds. Goodnight, Your Majesties all."

"'Night, Drinian." From the moment the Dawn Treader's prow had turned west, Lucy had longed to glimpse the graceful castle; now the hour drew close, and her belly tightened with a painful anticipation.

_Let us stay here longer, Aslan! _she implored silently. _Don't tease us with a sight of Narnia and send us home! Let us stay!_


	17. Chapter 17 Longest hours

_LONGEST HOURS_

Lucy and Celesta slept very little that night: it was with considerable relief they heard Caspian's pleasant voice approaching their cabin at the first fiery glint of rising sun on the water beneath its porthole. "Wait for us!" Lucy called after him, letting their door swing shut of its own accord. The boys halted, Edmund with his hand on the poop door. Together, they climbed into the pink-streaked peace of daybreak.

"See that over there, Your Majesties?" Rhince greeted them, lifting one hand from the wheel to point. "That's _Narnia_, that is!"

"Can't see it, myself," Eustace volunteered brightly. The Mate began a glare, caught the grin on the speaker's face, and turned it to a healthy guffaw.

"You will, young feller, soon enough! Cap'n's for'ard, Your Majesty, makin' sure the _'ousekeepin'_ gets done."

Lucy had no doubt the speaker would have preferred to oversee those myriad tasks himself, leaving his commander to maintain what was (usually) Drinian's favourite place aboard. "We'm got to be spick-an'-span, the King's ship, when we docks off the Cair, Your Majesties," he added ruefully.

The whole galleon was alive with activity. On the forecastle, men rubbed with rough cloth at the brass rails until they shone; on the main deck, under Drinian's immediate supervision, one fellow sluiced the planking with water while two others scrubbed hard against the wood with friable sandstone blocks. Nearby, another sailor whistled while touching up the paintwork, and in the shade of the foremast, a whole knot of his colleagues shone every silver and enamelled shield aboard, ready to hang over the landward side at sight of home.

And yet, though every man was happily occupied, and the very air above them thrummed with anticipation, there was no talking. People smiled toward the western horizon; hummed a snatch here and there of an old ballad; or sighed. But nobody seemed to speak.

Which made the whiplash crack of Drinian's occasional commands strike the ear more forcibly. "Let's go down," begged Lucy, her hand curled around the top of the poop ladder. "Goodness! It really _is_ our last day at sea!"

"That it is, Queen Lucy; and a perfect one, too." Her clear voice had carried warning of their approach, and Drinian turned with a brilliant smile to greet them. "Here, Erlick! Take a cloth to the bands around the mainmast; aye, all the way to the fighting top!"

"Aye aye, Cap'n." The smallest man aboard sprang into the rigging, a rag tucked under his chin. Guiding his passengers away from the area of greatest bustle, Drinian chuckled.

"Did you ever see a ship's company more enthusiastic for these tedious chores?" he asked.

"I never before saw _you_ abandon the helm to manage them," Caspian countered. His friend arched an inky brow.

"I'll have her gleaming like a schooner back from a week's coastal cruise before Cair Paravel comes in sight," he promised. "Rynelf! Drag up the Lion, we want its creases blown out afore it can be sighted from shore! Breakfast inside the hour, Your Majesties."

"In other words, keep out of the way while the company works," Caspian translated, more for the benefit of that company than his companions. "Are we permitted to loll untidily about the bows, Captain?"

"The deck's been holystoned and dried. Your Highnesses can do no damage there."

"Charming!" exclaimed Edmund. Laughter rang across the ship.

And yet still, it seemed to Eustace, the workaday chatter (allowed by Drinian to speed the more tiresome duties along) was quelled. "Somehow, I thought it'd be different," he said, when the breakfast things were cleared and the galley fire doused a final time. "I imagined they'd be singing and yelling and making a ruckus - with your permission, Drinian, of course. I simply didn't think it might be this _quiet_!"

"Were this the last day of an ordinary voyage, it _would_ be as you say," Drinian acknowledged readily. The ship was gleaming; the Golden Lion of the King's personal banner flew above the fighting top, and the shields were shining over the side of the hull. The whole crew had been dismissed to change from their working clothes into the formal uniform of the Narnian Fleet (seldom seen at sea). Himself resplendent in the dark blue tunic, edged with gold, of Lord High Admiral of the Realm, Drinian had leisure to lounge quietly with his friends at the bows.

"'Tis no want of excitement keeps the men subdued," he said now. "More astonishment, in knowing we truly _are_ close to sight of home shores."

"_That_ sentiment I comprehend in full," admitted Caspian ruefully. "There were moments - even _hours _- during our adventures when I doubted to see this day myself!"

"Only hours?" Eustace asked, his mind roving back to the Isle of Dreams; to invisible demons shouting blood-curdling threats; to Sea Serpents; to Deathwater; to the endless, lonely days of dragon-hood. Caspian gave him a smart clip about the ear.

"Shame on you, Eustace!" he exclaimed. "With this fine ship, and our valiant company, I should have been a capon to long imagine us doomed! Oh! But why cannot my lady Dawn Treader pick up her skirts and _fly_ these last short leagues to home?"

"There's not a man of us would wish less than that, Sire," Drinian assured him. "These are every mariner's most frustrating times."

"I've never seen you looking less _frustrated,_ Captain!" Lucy protested. He shrugged.

"There _is_ a certain pleasure, for a captain, in knowing a voyage is all but safely done," he allowed.

"And done well," added the Star's Daughter, making her first contribution of the day. He shrugged.

"That's for others to decide, not I! If I have my calculations correct, we ought to come in sight of shore _just_ in time to delay my Lord Regent's lunch."

"I _could _be persuaded to think that purposely arranged, my Lord," warned Caspian. Drinian flashed a guileless smile.

"Even the most skilled sailor cannot command wind and tide, Sire. If Purlian's awake aloft, we might expect his hail inside an hour."

* * *

The lookout proved entirely alert, giving the news in an excited squawk that stopped all activity on deck and turned all eyes ahead. "Land-ho! Land ahoy!" 

"Narnia!" breathed the King. "My Lords! Celesta! Look before us! Yonder lies your own land!"

Drinian seized the telescope Lucy hadn't known he was guarding, haring to the mainmast and launching himself up into the rigging before anyone could move to question. "After so many years, a moment more ought not to disquiet me," said burly Revelian, leading his old shipmates to join the eager knot assembling at the mast's foot. "And yet - am I alone in knowing a certain - apprehension?"

"I should think hardly a man of us is quite serene," Caspian soothed, with perfect truth. Shielding his eyes, he stared up with the rest of them to the dark figure leaned precariously from the basket of the fighting top. "Oh, why does he not _say_ something?"

As if he had heard, Drinian lowered his glass and began, steadily, to descend. With every man who could be spared from his station gathered to hear his words, he hopped down from the ratlines into an expectant huddle, straight-faced under their avid stares. "Hold her steady on this heading, Rhince," he said.

The Mate's broad, flat face split with a mammoth grin. Somebody choked off a sob. "We--" began the King, helplessly.

"The bowsprit's on course to enter Your Majesty's breakfast chamber if we don't look lively at mooring." Had he not known their friend better, Edmund would have sworn there were tears bringing an onyx gloss to the Captain's eyes. "Nay, we stand too far off to discern the castle, even from aloft; but I know the contour of this coast as I do the glades of Etinsmere. A few more minutes and we'll see it from deck, too."

He offered his telescope to Caspian. "Take station at the for'ard rail, Sire," he instructed kindly. "Peridan! Run, fetch the spare glass from my cabin; Rhince, hand yours to Queen Lucy. Rynelf - Erlick… hang it! Who else brought his own telescope aboard?"

Half a dozen voices raised; a dozen feet were sent pattering into the belly of the ship in search of items suddenly worth their weight in diamonds and gold, while all the passengers and most of the crew tore for the forecastle and a glimpse of home. "I see it!" cried Lucy, after what (to her less fortunate shipmates) felt like an age. "Oh, _Ed_!"

"One can tell it's _land_," he said, screwing up his right eye against the cool of the spyglass. "But I'm blowed if I can make out any more! Stand still, Scrubb! You'll have Celesta overboard, if you keep _jiggling about _so!"

Slowly, the misty smear across the far horizon assumed definite shape; first the contours, then even the colours, made themselves known. Rounded hills to the south, their smoothness broken by woodland; steeper, more rugged slopes stretching north, shielding the Narnian interior from the lash of the weather's worst excesses. And there, speared by the jib boom, a mere pebble at so great a distance, seemingly attached to the mainland, the rocky outcrop of Cair Paravel Island. Impossible to discern its flowing lines at such range, yet they formed clear in Lucy's mind. _Home_.

She was vaguely conscious of voices around her: not of speech, but of breathless murmurs, formless sighs. She let the telescope drop from her eye. "Oh!"

Minute by minute a new feature emerged, blessedly familiar, tugging the heart. The Star's Daughter stood rapt, a tear trickling from her exposed eye. "You have told me Narnia is lovely," she murmured, a blind grope of the hand catching Caspian's. "Yet somehow, I never dreamed… Eustace, did you ever see a panorama more perfect?"

Her neighbour on the left shook his head. Beyond him, hatchet-faced Revelian mopped at streaming eyes. "'Tis a sight I never thought to see again this lifetime, Ma'am," he growled.

"Your Majesties pardons all." Venturing far had cured shy Mavramorn of none of his lifelong prejudices. "Do we not steer to the heart of what men call the _Black Woods_? That fortress yonder…"

"The ancient heart of _true_ Narnia." That he, in childhood, had shared the superstitious dread the man expressed improved Caspian's humour not a whit. "Seat of the Four Great Sovereigns, by name Cair Paravel: left to decay by the ignorance and fear of _our_ ancestors, you find it restored by Aslan's breath. As to the phantoms which haunt those woods, what harm have they done Their Honours of Etinsmere, that have lived for generations beyond them, cut off from the heart of meek, _Telmar_ Narnia?"

"Tirian was apt to call that barrier a boon," remembered Argoz, with a fond smile toward his dead friend's son. Drinian returned it with a touch of wistfulness.

"Aye, my Lord. But you see already the truth His Majesty has told. You return to a Narnia very different from that you once knew."

"It is, at least," said Revelian (who would never admit himself daunted by the prospect of sharing his land with animals that talked and strange, half-human sprites, men with the legs of goats and their ilk) "a Narnia which accepts the rule of her true and lawful king. All Your Highness' subjects _do_ acknowledge it?"

"I should hardly have left my dominions in the grip of civil strife, my Lord," said Caspian, amused. "By the Mane of Aslan! How could I have forgotten how magnificent Cair Paravel truly is?"

It seemed to Celesta that while the eyes of most were fixed on the citadel atop its island bluff, one dark gaze turned itself to the rugged country north with all the intensity of desperation. "My Lord Drinian?" she questioned, just the tip of her finger brushing his sleeve. He jumped six inches off the deck.

"What ever is the _matter_?" cried Lucy.

"My apologies." He wrenched his attention shipboard. "Lost in my thoughts," he explained.

"And straining for the chimney pots of your hilltop home?" suggested Caspian sympathetically.

"Glenstorm did say, Sire, 'tis the experience of exile makes my own lands so dear."

"The chief of our centaurs," Caspian explained quickly. "Quite renowned for his wisdom; a prophet and a seer, like the greatest of his kind. Tell me, ought not the lookouts Trumpkin pledged to post atop the turrets have espied our approach by now?"

"They're fit for naught but the lash and a leaking barrel if they've not, Sire."

Caspian cocked his head. "A frank assessment! And what of the commander that posted the slackers?"

"'Tis Your Majesty's perogative to chastise my Lord Regent; and you're welcome to it!"

"I should say so!" Edmund chortled. "You'll like Trumpkin, Scrubb," he added. "I never saw so much energy in such a confined space."

"Fortunate for Your Majesty Sir Reepicheep is no longer aboard!"

"Excepting the Mouse, then. Oh, Lu, isn't it wonderful to be _back_?"

Lucy couldn't speak. In fact, confronted with all their finest dreams made real, neither could anyone else.


	18. Epilogue Journey's end

Author's Note: The final installment, and my first stab at writing Aslan; is it just me, or is he really daunting? Compliments of the season, and thanks for reading!

_EPILOGUE - JOURNEY'S END_

Unseen from the ship, a single figure raised itself upon the crenulated battlement around the south-eastern tower of Cair Paravel. Comet-like, sunlight flashed from the lens of the glass in its hand, spearing out across the waves. A voice raised in an excited shout, and the figure disappeared.

"What's that?" Eustace asked, mere minutes later. "Ugh! There's something _crawling_ on the beach."

Lord Rhoop covered his face. "Even here they come for me!" he moaned.

"People!" Lucy had guessed before Drinian could snatch up his telescope to confirm it. "Caspian, we've been spotted! People - goodness, _scores_ of them! - are running onto the beach to see you home!"

Not only people, she amended a moment later, with the loan of Rhince's glass to clarify the confusion on the hectic shore. Dwarves and fauns, naiads and dryads, Beasts of every description, all mingled together with men and women: laughing, happy humans, with flocks of birds calling and cawing above. Clustered thickest around the bridge connecting Cair Paravel to the mainland, the throng spread south; all Narnia in holiday best, flocking from woodland glade and cosy hearth to see her King return.

"King's trumpeter to the fighting top!" Drinian shouted. "Gun crew, stand ready to salute!"

Beaming sailors ran to his command. "Docking party amidships!"

Rhince led the charge to a pair of iron braces on either side of the retracted gangway, where coils of rope thick as a man's forearm waited to be unwound and cast ashore. "I say!" exclaimed Edmund. "There's a _quay_, Lu, look, actually carved out of the island's cliff! _That_ must've taken some work!"

"Two years o' labour, King Edmund." Drinian had supervised the construction of the galleon's anchorage as closely as he had the laying of her keel. "His Majesty will step from deck to the island, up the steps, and there address his subjects ashore. As I _did_ mention once (at least) before; preparation is _everything_."

The cheers of those subjects drowned out Caspian's mocking response. The knots in Lucy's stomach, part excitement and part (to her annoyance) pure fear, tightened and loosed with every breath. She wanted to speak: to point out Faun, Centaur and Dryad to Eustace, whom she doubted had the remotest inkling of which was which, but her throat was too dry. _Thank goodness it's Caspian, not me, who has to make a dignified speech!_

A gun boomed from the height of the battlements; the lighter, crisp bark of the landward gun, undistorted by distance, growled a reply. From the fighting top, the golden notes of the trumpet flowed. Caspian lifted a hand, gracious acknowledgement of the first distinct sounds to stretch from the shore. _Long live King Caspian! Aslan bless the King!_

"Come to the side," Caspian urged them. "Drinian--"

"The moment we're safe docked, and not before." Lucy knew the water lapping the island's southern cliffs ran deep, but controlling a large vessel close to rock was a treacherous proposition for even the most experienced mariner. "Sailmen, smartly, there! Reef and furl! Rhince--"

"Ready 'ere, Cap'n!"

"Lucy - boys - Celesta - my Lords." Caspian hustled them down the poop ladder, to stand square amidships at the seaward edge of the gangplank, ready to ascend the instant it crashed safe to shore. The Dawn Treader turned her nose to the freshening wind, sliding off alignment. With the merest flick of the wheel, Drinian had the lurch arrested.

"Easy, now," he soothed, as if the wooden structure under his hands were truly alive. "Steady, my lady!"

With a sigh lost beneath the applauding and shouting ashore, the Dawn Treader nudged her way to rest in the channel carved into the cliff face for her. Her gangway thudded down. For the first time in a year and a half, the royal foot of King Caspian X left its print in Narnian dust.

"Your Majesty!" There was Trumpkin, Lord Regent of the Realm, at the head of the rough-cut stone stairway, eager to surrender his charge into the true master's outstretched hand. Despite the euphoria, Caspian knew a moment of sinking despair. _Farewell, freedom! Duty, etiquette, the constraint of a crown!_

"Soup and celery!" The Red Dwarf, kneeling to kiss the limp hand in his grasp, was near tears. "Glad am I to see Your Majesty safe home! You have been missed in every day, Sire!"

"As have you; and all my faithful subjects." Caspian hoped his pleasant voice would carry all the way across the channel to shore: briefly, he wished he had the _iron lungs_ Drinian boasted of in a crisis, when the Captain's commanding tones would echo from one end of the Dawn Treader to the other. "My Lord Drinian!" he cried, raising the Dwarf to his feet. "Lead our shipmates ashore! Let all see, and be seen! Our great voyage of discovery is ended!"

The men flowed off the ship, a vibrant human stream. Clustered behind the royal party on the highest point of the island, just beyond the castle wall, they stared; pointed; waved to sweethearts weeping for joy ashore. Caspian cleared his throat.

And, though they continued to stare and smile, the men stilled.

Somehow, Lucy didn't think it was quite _fair_.

"Friends," Caspian began,. "A year and a half is passed, since last We stood in this place, bidding you be patient, faithful and of good cheer; for Aslan, our good lord, had sanctioned Our quest, and would stand guardian over Us and all Narnia through it. He has not failed us; and We may declare with confidence that the Men, Beasts, Dwarves, Fauns and all of Narnia have not failed _him_.

"We know, by the letters received at Galma from Our dauntless Regent, Sir Trumpkin here, that this land has been peaceful, prosperous, in Our absence. We give thanks to Our forbearing subjects; to the wisdom of Our Lords of Council remaining within the realm, Sir Trufflehunter and Sir Cornelius in particular; and above all, to Sir Trumpkin, for that wisdom, discretion and prudence with which he has assumed the burden of rule. In the future, should We require instruction in the performance of Our kingly duty, We shall turn with confidence to the best of Dwarves."

"Shouldn't do that, if I were you, Sire," said the retiring Regent promptly. "Whistles and whirligigs! The things I've not been called these last few months! You'd not credit a King's representative could be so abused!"

The attendant Councillors rolled their eyes; Badger Trufflehunter rubbed a broad grey paw across his snout. "Your Majesty's infrequent flares of _temper_ in the Council Chamber will never provoke reaction in _us_ again, Sire," he pledged.

"Your Highness will note, _one_ member of the Inner Council does not nod his head at that," murmured Drinian.

"Objection noted, my Lord." Caspian grinned.

"Our purpose in venturing to uncharted seas," he continued, more loudly, "was not rashness; nor glory; nor any worldly vanity. It was to experience adventure, and to seek the fate of seven brave men, true adherents to their lawful lord, Our late royal father King Caspian, Ninth of that name, banished to the waves long ago by the hatred of a murderous usurper. We must report with regret the deaths, in circumstances never to be fully known, of the Lords Octesian and Restimar: and we bid welcome, with a full heart, to their native shore, my Lords Argoz, Mavramorn, Revelian and Rhoop. Step forth beside Us, gentlemen! Make yourselves known to your compatriots!"

It seemed to Eustace that the four long-lost Narnians were even more flummoxed by the variety of beings that shouted, brayed and cawed welcome than himself and Celesta, complete strangers to the country. Lucy would think it _awful_, but the realisation comforted him. "The Lord Bern, seventh and last of the usurper's foes, as is known to you all," Caspian shouted over the din, "rules at Narrowhaven, Our appointed Governor and Duke of the Lone Islands. Our endeavours to right the wrong done honest men by a villainous tyrant have achieved success beyond all We ever dared hope."

The four lords shuffled back, Revelian for once as shrinking as Rhoop, into the anonymity of the ship's company, lost among men only too pleased to be seen by the throngs ashore. "Our quest," Caspian pressed on, "was blessed not merely with success, but with great pleasure. At Aslan's choosing were sent the most honoured of all our predecessors, sovereigns over Narnia and us. King Edmund, Queen Lucy, your realm and all within it salute you!"

Eustace was sure he would never cease to marvel at the change which came over the Pevensies when their titles were declaimed. They stepped forward, beyond Caspian and the dwarf, their hands lifted in answer to an excited wave of cheering.

"With Their Majesties is come this gentleman; Eustace, step forward, let Narnia bid you welcome as I do!"

"Come _on_, idiot!" grated Edmund.

"Don't be so blasted _impatient_!" he muttered in answer, forced into motion by a pair of willing hands on his back. He was convinced he could pick out the spot where every single curious eye fixed on him. "Um - hello," he managed.

"Master Eustace is kin to Their Majesties," Caspian explained. "And has been our staunch friend and gallant shipmate beside them. It is Our privilege, friend, to welcome you at last to Our dominions."

"Say _thank you_, Eustace!"

"I - um - thank you, Your Majesty."

From the smiles on their faces, he rather gathered he had said the right thing. The next instant, with the Star's Daughter being propelled forward by her fiancé's glance he was forgotten about.

"Lastly, we beg you all, for the love of Us, make welcome this worthiest of women, the Lady Celesta; daughter of the stars and the farthest seas, come from the Isle at the Beginning of the World's End at our ardent plea, to reside in Narnia, Our wife and Queen. Madam, before you I lay all that I possess. Make free with it; it is your own."

There was no swell of cheering from the shore; only a gentle, awed murmur broken by the creaking of joints, all Narnia kneeling in homage to a tall, graceful girl. "If I dare speak for all Narnians, Ma'am," said Trumpkin, rolling forward to plant his sturdy form before her. "Bid thee heartily welcome, and may Aslan bless Your Grace!"

"May Aslan bless all Narnia, my Lord, and make me worthy of her." Celesta returned his reverence with her own, bringing a whispering sigh from the crowd. The Narnians were won over in the first instant by their new queen.

"Now all introductions are done, there remains one last, proud duty We must perform." Caspian diverted his steady gaze from the mainland to the huddle behind him. "Shipmates - friends. Our quest has been long and fraught with peril yet, together, we have surmounted all to come safely home. Every man will have the reward, in gold and land, pledged before. To all your descendants, to the end of Time, will you bequeath the golden title, Dawn Treader. In addition to so much, you have my undying admiration and thanks. As your Captain declared last evening - and he is a greater judge than I - there could be no finer crew than this.

"And as to that Captain." Not all his restored kingliness could keep the smile from Caspian's lips as he turned to address his friend. "My Lord Drinian. Though the proclamation of the quest was mine, its glorious completion owes more to you than any other man. This ship, her crew - aye, even the very mooring she rests in - are your creations.

"Last evening, the men expressed their appreciation of your unceasing efforts in three lusty cheers: allow now that _I_ pay a tribute no less heartfelt. The Dawn Treader would never have sailed beyond the edge of my imagination without your salt good sense to guide and rein me. All we who have sailed in her know she might have been wrecked a dozen times under the command of a lesser mariner. _Thank you_, old friend."

Drinian bowed as the forgotten spectators cheered. "With Your Majesty's permission?" he murmured, scrabbling (Lucy was sure) for something to _do_ in defence against the faintly embarrassed surprise of the King's earnest compliments. He jerked his dark head. Caspian's expression cleared.

"Oh! By all means, Captain!" he exclaimed. Drinian turned a considering stare to the motley body of seamen .

"Ship's company!" he bellowed, and though they were on land again, not really his ship's company any more, they all leapt to attention. A faint, fond smile ghosted across Drinian's face. "Disembark," he instructed, kindly

Quietly, orderly, the crew filed past their Captain, bowed their heads to their King, and flooded across the drawbridge which connected Cair Paravel Island with Narnia herself. Ashore, the crowds parted; people, women, some with small children, began to wash up, like whitecaps foaming onto an empty shore. Voices raised.

"Oh, Ed!" gasped Lucy, tears welling at the sight of thirty-odd ecstatic reunions spread along the sand.

"All the anxious wives and fretful sweethearts," he agreed, trying (and failing) to sound callous. "D'you know, it never occurred to me to wonder how many of the chaps had wives and children, and look at Peridan, with a little troop of them! Astonishing that a fellow would risk _all that_ on a chancy voyage into uncharted seas!"

"We made right an' proper provision, against the menfolk not returning, Your Majesty," said Trumpkin, mightily affronted. "If the ship wasn't home inside two years, the gold and land promised to the sailors was to go to the relation every man declared before sailing."

"Yes, but there's more to family than material security, D.L.F!"

"Wouldn't know about that, Sire; never having been tempted to settle, you know."

"And we were quite confident even _those_ provisions were needless; never doubting we should make landfall - as we _have_ - inside those two years," added Caspian. "Is that not so, Captain?"

"I don't think he's listening," said the Star's Daughter gently.

Caspian stood on tiptoes, placing his mouth close to his best friend's ear. "Drinian? Oh, what _is_ the use?"

"Down on shore," said Lord Argoz, craning his scrawny neck, "I observe a maiden in the same state of trance as our shipmate. Perchance Your Majesty might identify her?"

"Oh!" Following the line indicated smacked Caspian's puzzled stare into the upturned face of a pretty, slender girl whose tear-bright brown eyes were locked with Drinian's.

"Daniela?" questioned Lucy.

"The Lady of Glasswater," he affirmed.

"Awfully pretty, isn't she?"

The young woman upon whom all eyes were now fixed remained blissfully oblivious to the attention she attracted, lost in a wordless exchange with her lover. Dressed in a simple cream linen gown, her dark chestnut hair caught back in a braid that hung to her waist, she was jostled and nudged by the excited reunions around her, yet never seemed to lose either her balance or her connection with him. Drinian's lips moved but even Caspian, closest to him, heard no sound.

"Go," he said, giving his friend a gentle shove. Whether the action or the word propelled the taller man he couldn't tell, but a split second later the Lady of Glasswater too was moving, steadily, confidently, with the dazed expression of a sleepwalker across her lovely face.

They met at the end of the drawbridge; hands extended, speech unnecessary as the lightest brush of callused flesh on smooth sent shivers through them both. Drinian brought her fingers to his mouth.

Infinitely tender, the gesture was all it took to break the disbelieving haze that had wound itself, almost a mist, about them. Drinian's hands came up to her waist; on a shriek of exultant laughter that sliced through the babble around, Daniela was swung high, her skirts falling like a giant butterfly wing, spinning around his head. For a moment she hung suspended over him, their faces mere inches apart; then, smooth and sure, he lowered her. Their twin smiles disappeared into a long, languid kiss.

"Come, we must introduce you!" Caspian seized his betrothed's hand. Celesta tugged him back.

"Give them but these few moments, Sire," she advised, smiling as Drinian lowered his lady to her feet, never breaking the kiss. "At least, allow that they exchange their first _words _privately!"

The lovers drew back, and though they were only one couple amongst dozens on the beach, Edmund was sure they thought themselves completely alone. Glasswater's mistress brushed the bronzed cheek of Etinsmere's lord. Her lips moved.

"There!" said Caspian, with a hard-heartedness Lucy found inexplicable. "First words, you said! Now, do come, you _must_ be introduced at once!"

"'Tis true? You are not a dream this time?" The Lady of Glasswater had a low, lilting voice that turned her awestruck words into melody. Drinian pressed his mouth to her brow.

"Did _that _feel unreal?"

"Nay; but many a dream has felt real, and another disappointment now…"

He cupped her bright face, using his thumbs to dry the tears that dripped from her high cheekbones. "I will study never to disappoint you in any way, my soul," he pledged huskily. Daniela linked her hands at his nape.

"So long as you still love me, my handsome Captain, you never shall." She gave a press with the hands that guided his head down, stood on her toes, and sealed her promise with a kiss. Lucy was certain she had never seen a man so blissful as Drinian when, at last, he was released. "Now, let me look at you," Daniela commanded, pushing herself to arm's length. Drinian returned her careful scrutiny in full.

"Lovelier even than I remembered," he breathed. Caspian coughed loudly.

For the briefest moment, annoyance flashed across two faces. Then Drinian turned.

"Your Majesties; Ma'am - Eustace, allow me to present Daniela, Lady of Glasswater, to you."

The guileless adoration in the way he said her name turned Lucy's knees to water. "Goodness, how he loves her!" she whispered.

"Your Majesties." First to her own king, then to the rest of the party, she curtsied. Caspian raised her up.

"Forgive my impatience to make you known to our friends," he apologised, so naturally both offended parties smiled, and Lucy quite forgot she had been annoyed. "We shall have ample time for everyone to become acquainted after, but I must hear from your own lips, dear Daniela; you are well? You have not permitted yourself undue anxiety in our absence?"

She had the merriest, most infectious giggle Eustace had ever heard: amusement lit her from inside, bringing sparks of molten gold into misty brown eyes. "I fretted and feared five minutes each day from the hour the Dawn Treader sailed, Sire," she replied, as though it were obvious. Her restless glance found Drinian's intent face again and stilled there, making Lucy doubt she would ever have enough of gazing at him. "Told myself very sternly that my Captain would have me clapped in irons for such folly, and continued about my business. You'll find not a sweetheart in Narnia that was more sensible with herself than I."

"You have been well?"

"Aye." Her hand sought and found his. "And have fulfilled my promise faithfully, in watching my lord's estates as diligently as I have my own. You'll find Etinsmere in fine condition; the harvest was plentiful, and your people thrive. I took news of your being safe at Narrowhaven to Ellena myself; and _that_, I think, has produced a marvellous softening in her resentment against answering to me as mistress in time to come!"

"Soon to come, Aslan willing: and don't concern yourself with my housekeeper's affectations. Ellena," he added, by way of explanation, "has managed Etinsmere to her own choosing, since my father's death and my flight to exile with my mother. The prospect of a mistress arriving to _interfere with the running of things_ does not entirely delight her."

"She thinks me a wonder, since I took your note to my Lord Regent from Glasswater for her inspection. Oh, Trumpkin could not have been kinder, Your Majesty; the first thing he did, when the schooner bearing your letters put in from Narrowhaven, was to have a mule saddled and come to me."

Drinian relinquished her hand just long enough to engulf the Dwarf's in a vehement grip. "_Thank you_," he said.

"Naught to thank me for, m'Lord; and her Ladyship was so kind as to let the rest o' the women know."

"Thus sparing my Lord Regent many an emotional scene," Daniela finished dryly. The stocky little man gaped.

"Kettles and kingfishers, I never knew my motives were so obvious!" he stammered. Everyone laughed.

"Never think to deceive my Lady of Glasswater," Drinian advised him cheerfully. "It was a kindness, nonetheless, to inform the ladies."

"I should have proved myself unworthy of the Captain's heart, had I showed less sympathy with poor creatures in my own predicament than _he_ would for their men."

Caspian beamed at the sentiment. "Come within the castle, one and all - Daniela, you will adjourn with us and hear somewhat of our adventures? Trumpkin! Have the remainder of the week proclaimed a holiday, in my name! We shall have a ball at the Cair; a night of dancing at the Lawn. And then, we shall begin to plan for two marriages; aye, and a coronation, too!"

Drinian buried his face against the silken softness of his lady's hair. "Lion bless me!" he exclaimed. "Delay the holiday until _that_ is done, if Your Majesty has any compassion for his poor Council! Our nerves will be in tatters by the end of it!"

The King opened his mouth to protest, but the touch of warmed, golden air on his tongue was enough to still the impertinent frippery of speech. Lucy breathed in deeply of its strange radiance, knowing without looking that every creature along the foreshore was doing the same.

Though the babble stilled, sound still rang, bell-like, in every ear; a sound that thrummed from the glowing air itself. _Aslan!_

Lucy was sure she had not breathed the name; she didn't recognise the voice as belonging to any of her companions. But it hung in the breeze, a solid, real presence, just like the great beast padding, his tawny back dappled by shade, from the woods which backed the beach. Everyone knelt, mindless of the damp sand clinging against their knees. Stately, the Lion passed through the throng.

Lucy didn't see him sway to avoid people; she was positive none of the Narnians shuffled from his path, the stillness was too complete for that. Yet he moved arrow-straight and sure through the crowd, until he stood, big as a horse, and golden, drawing all the sun's radiance to his, on clear sand.

"Caspian, King of Narnia," he said, the lowest rumble (almost a purr, Lucy always thought) of his deep voice thrumming off the skin. "Approach."

The King obeyed, walking the short distance with head bowed before sinking once more to his knees before the Highest of High Kings. Aslan brought one heavy, velvet paw onto his shoulder.

"Rejoice in your return, Son of Adam," he said. "And never shirk from the great task before you. Once a King of Narnia, always a King of Narnia; no matter how far from her borders you may be."

"I will not fail by want of effort, my Lord." Lion-ish strength surged through his blood. Caspian raised a bright, determined face. _How could I ever have considered abandoning my own?_

"You say well." The Lion had heard the thought; Caspian was convinced of it. "King Edmund; Queen Lucy. Draw near."

Fearless, they came, steady in holding his bottomless amber stare. "Oh, Aslan!" gasped Lucy. "You've not come to send us home already, have you?"

"Nay, Queen Lucy." He dipped his great head, the scent and softness of his mane a promise. "Your presence is a boon to Narnia at any time; you shall stay a little while yet."

"Thank you, Sir!" said Edmund devoutly. The Lion gave him a solemn look.

Then he turned again, the small movement making every powerful muscle of his neck and back ripple. "Eustace."

There was no menace in the word, but the boy still felt all the terrible awe of his first encounter with the Lion back on Dragon Island. He shuffled on his knees, carving deep gashes in the sand to be washed clean by the next tide. Aslan's little growl sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

"Look up, Son of Adam," he said, waiting for Eustace to obey, tentative, before going on. "You are a stranger to this land, which time immemorial has welcomed strangers. Be worthy of it."

"I - I'll try my best, Sir."

"None of Adam's heirs can promise fairer." Eustace released the worried breath he had been holding. Lucy reached to give his hand a squeeze.

"Drinian, Lord of Etinsmere." The Lion addressed one never summoned to his presence before. "Come close."

Caspian couldn't resist peeking back. The first time _he_ had been called forward, his knees had knocked together so hard he still wondered how he had walked the short distance. How did Drinian bear the delicious ordeal?

With a serious face and a steady step that belied the tension in his belly. He sank onto his knees beside Eustace. Aslan growled softly again.

"You have done well, Son of Adam," he said. A smile of startled pleasure lit the young sailor's face. "Remember always, as you have this journey: a faithful friend is a greater boon to kings than the most obedient subject."

"My Lord." The truth of the words echoed in the ears of sovereign and subject alike. The Lion sighed, his sweet, strong breath whispering warmly across the five faces before him.

"Rise up, Sons of Adam. Rise, Daughter of Eve," he said, lifting his voice until it rebounded back from wood and stone and shimmered on the glinting crest of every incoming wave. "Narnia has her King returned; let her rejoice as he has commanded her; let her gather all her strength for the days of trial to come. Blessings upon her!"

And then, though nobody saw how, he was gone.

Blinking, like sleepers shaken awake, everyone climbed to his (or her) feet.

"Our homecoming," declared Caspian, rubbing his eyes, "could not have been more highly blessed."

"Can't say I liked that bit about _days of trial to come_, Your Majesties," observed Trumpkin.

"It did sound a touch _ominous_," Edmund agreed. Drinian arched a jet brow.

"May have been naught more than a reference to the trials of planning and organisation we have ahead, King Edmund," he said, buoyed up by the confidence only a first encounter with the Lion could bestow. "_He_ knows the trouble we shall have, getting the King o' Narnia to _decide_ the smallest detail of the ceremonies we have ahead!"

Laughing, protesting, Caspian led his party back up the drawbridge's steep slope and into the castle court, the double gates swinging shut to mute the uproarious excitement on the mainland. Lucy looked up to the ivy-clad walls surrounding her, sweet peace filling her heart. "It is," she murmured, happy tears filling her eyes and splashing onto her cheeks, "it really _is_ wonderful to be home!"


End file.
